Everything About Kris's SOUL in Deltarune Chapter 2

WARNING: NO SANE PERSON SHOULD READ THIS WORD DUMP CLICK READ MORE AT OWN RISK THIS IS PART ONE OF A THREE PART COMMENT AND ALL THE COMMENTS ARE LONG AF So... about that whole Chara thing... being a long time Undertale fan is hard. Because when you’ve been here since the beginning... When you’ve been along for the ride as all the canon content was discovered... When you’ve watched as the theories were crafted and deconstructed and crafted again until they became commonly accepted in the fandom... You get to this point. The point where years later, when new canon appears after ages of breaking down the old content from every angle imaginable, you try looking back to the theories and obscurities you at one point thought nothing of... and you start to realize just how much of it there is. You start scratching your head like, “wait, HOW did I get all this stuff again???” Like getting back into algebra after not doing it for years. At the time, you could recite the formulas without even thinking about it. You understood the logic of how to get the answer and why you had use specific formulas to arrive at specific conclusions. But then when you look back on it after not doing it for a few years, your old algebra notebook might as well be Egyptian hieroglyphics. You start wondering how the hell that incomprehensible gibberish was actually produced by your brain. More then that, you wonder how the hell it actually made SENSE to you at one point. That’s what it’s like for me when it comes to the older Undertale theories and how they might tie into deltarune. Like, whenever I try to theory craft, I’ll try to use the old commonly accepted theories as the base line for new deltarune theories to start from. These foundation theories include: the lost voice in the files, the meta of timelines, narrator Chara, or anything at all having to do with Darker Yet Darker Very Very Interesting Blaster Master GÆšTëR and his skeletal relatives. I find myself having to go back and justify the foundation of my arguments because I’ll lose sense of my own logic halfway through. Like “wait, why am I certain the narrator is Chara again? Is there actually concrete evidence of Gaster being a skeleton that is not circumstantial? What is the actual gameplay and thematic effect of LV and EXP? Wait, is Chara even their canon name? What was the actual timeline of events from the war of humans and monsters to when Frisk fell? How much time canonically separates those events? How much time separated when Asriel found the first human to when the first human died? At what point did the monster’s migration across the underground happen; before, after, or while the first human was with the Dremmurr’s? How old were Chara and Asriel when they carried out their plan? How long after the war of humans and monsters was that? Were all six of the fallen human’s confirmed to be children? How the fuck do Toriel and Asgore age and how is that related to weather or not Frisk is their biological child again??? Was Asriel born during, before, or after the war? Was he born underground or on the surface? If underground, how long after the war? Wait, which characters in Undertale have seen the surface and participated in the War and who was born underground? How old would the characters who were a part of the war have to be?” I get lost because so many well thought out theories have been developed and painstakingly pieced together over years by an army of fans way too invested in this universe. But now these theories are so well established in my mind as a part of my understanding of Undertale lore and how Undertale works, I can’t really separate the canon from the theory without rethinking my entire understanding of the game. This was fine before because I knew how to personally go back and verify why I believed certain theories were plausible based on my own observations from the game, but now the theories I rely on are so far removed from the canon content I can no longer navigate my way back through the rabbit hole of why I chose to believe these things to be true. This was a rabbit hole that I once could run through forward and backward with my eyes closed. But now I’ve been so deep in that hole for so long that I’ve forgotten how to navigate my way through it back to concrete canon evidence from the game that justifies my assumptions on how the Undertale universe works. For old fans, the rabbit hole of lore is nearly impossible to retrace your steps in to sort out what is confirmed or not, or to confirm how widely accepted theories are justified. Even though they know they must be. Because you know the community accepted these theories because they were well thought out and had convincing evidence that took years to gather. But even so, you can no longer remember what that evidence is. And it’s nearly impossible to remember unless you never stopped theory crafting since the height of Undertale popularity. (as in, you never stopped taking algebra). And for newcomers that are just now getting into all this, there is such a mountain of lore that the fandom has extracted and inferred from that one tiny game over the years that unpacking it seems nearly impossible. Catching up new fans in a way so they can catch up with the older fan’s line of reasoning, which is necessary to comprehend just the foundation of what we are basing all of our discussions on, would almost need to take as many years as it took old fans to develop that line of reasoning in the first place (exaggerating but you get it). That’s why I really appreciate videos like the Gaster one you shouted out in your video. Because I feel like we can get so deep into theories and lost in our dusty old notebooks full of red tape connections that we miss very obvious insinuations that are stated plainly in the cannon. Just like with the save thing you mentioned.

Dude… I didn’t even realize that Kris “sleeping like a corpse” was a reference to the fact that the player wasn’t present during the timeskip, that’s genius

The "kris does this sometimes" has nothing to do with the tearing out their soul part they just turn on the water and jump out the window to go be a local cryptid

The simple fact of the matter is that Kris is a depressed teenager in a horribly fucked up scenario. As someone who was once a depressed teenager myself I can absolutely see myself taking similar actions to them if something showed up and started possessing me for so much of my day, and also suddenly magic was real. I would absolutely play it a bit risky to try and figure out what was going on and hold onto any amount of autonomy I could. Kris' whole town's wifi is out so they don't even have access to shady custom content for the Sims to vent that urge.

Kris had a cage all set up before the game began for them to throw the soul into. Almost no one talks about this but it seems pretty significant.

One other thing that people forget to mention: It is not just Noelle that realizes their strange behavior Rudy thinks kris has grown up Sans has well... "Great to see you again" and everything else and Toriel, even on the first day she ends up thinking that Kris is sick, even without any off wording or behavior. The thing is that she is simply just happy that Kris has a friend after what seems to be a long time, and refuses to confront Kris as to not get in the way of their friendship.

I wanted to address the “kris still makes a fountain in snowgrave“ issue real quick. Like you said, giving kris a reason for creating a dark world on the normal route is easy. They want to have more adventures with their friends, maybe improve their relationship with their mom which doesn’t seem to be the best, easily explainable. But on snowgrave? That’s a bit tougher. My belief is that creating the fountain is a calculated risk on kris’ part. Kris may believe that further exploring the dark world may help them find a way to free themselves from our control. In addition, kris knows that the knight is still around (and yes, i am operating under the assumption that kris is not the knight, as i can see too many reasons against this), so they’ll inevitably be dragged into another dark world - but by making one themselves, they get to choose the playing field. This dark world is in kris’ own house, this is home turf. We can even see kris manipulating the environment before creating the fountain, like opening the door and turning on the tv. Kris wants the home field advantage. Finally, kris may believe that the risk of another snowgrave situation may be small with susie and toriel there. Susie is a rebel with a strong will, so she’d be tough to manipulate, and toriel is very stubborn, as shown by her continued distancing from asgore, so she’d also be hard for us to control. These two stand in strong contrast to noelle, who is about as spineless as you can get and thus easily manipulated. In short, kris does the same thing for two different reasons - on the normal route, kris makes a dark fountain to strengthen their bonds and have another adventure, but on snowgrave, kris wants the next adventure to be on their terms to minimize the risk of another noelle, another berdly. Two different thought processes with the same result - open a dark fountain at home.

11:19 Another point against the "Kris was kind of a creepy dick before chapter 1 and then became significantly more chill" thing is that's exactly what happened to Susie as well

I honestly agree with you. I think far too few people explore the possibility that Kris is neither a hero nor a villain. They're a teenager in some pretty fucked up circumstances and it doesn't seem unreasonable that they'd act in ways that can be harmful to both themself and others. I really want to figure out their exact motives for creating the fountain, as it could be pretty much anything from, "They just want to spend time with Susie and wanted to ensure she'd stay the night" to "They have some secret ulterior motive but need Susie for it". I kind of like the idea, however, that Kris in a Snowgrave route is trying to get help. That's why they slash the tires, to get their mom to call police. Toriel has suspected something is wrong with Kris and would be hard to control. Susie is genuinely friends with Kris now and might suspect something wrong while also being virtually impossible for the player to control.

Summary: Everyone asks “what’s Kris” but nobody asks “how’s Kris” :(

The biggest thing I noticed in Deltarune is how much it appears to be a coming of age story. Both chapters involve a character standing up to a corrupt or overbearing parental figure in order to assume a more independent and adult reality. Kris, by all evidence given, was a lonely kid with a reputation for being kinda weird and creepy. You get this from the room you wake up in being noticeably more barren and gloomy than Asriels, as well as numerous interactions in the game. Why are these things important? Simple. Your actions as the player are giving Kris a different approach to life. Just one day of control and Kris has a friend in Susie, went on a cool adventure, accomplished something even though it might not be in the "real world" This success in life continues in chapter 2, even in Snowgrave. The difference is, while Susie, Noelle, and Lancer gain independence and freedom, Kris sacrifices it to go on the ride with them. Kris was a lonely kid who now has friends and fun adventures... because of your control. That's a fair bit better than what we can gather from how life was before the player influence: Lonely, no accomplishments, no friends, brother is gone, most of the kids talk behind your back. Why not give up some control and escape into a dark world if it changes that? Frisk doesn't seem to have any backstory at all in Undertale. Just a kid who fell down a hole. Any reason? Running from a bad home? Looking for adventure? Just tripped on a rock? Narratively it doesn't matter. Frisk is just an avatar to represent the player and what they want to do, the only real action they take is telling you their name at the end of the pacifist run. Kris on the other hand has tons of interactions that paint a picture of what kind of kid they were before we came along, and it wasn't pretty. Did I mention Kris is in a broken home? And his only friend is gone from his life to college? Yeah that might play a role in why they're so eager to just... let someone dictate their actions. The scariest part is that even after snowgrave, Kris makes another dark world, presumably in an attempt to go through another adventure with you at the helm.

To address the Flowey being soulless point, I think it should be noted that flowers do not normally have souls, hence any lack of physical side-effects, whereas a human body or even likely a monster one would require a proper soul to function

My personal opinion has always been way more simple. Kris did have a soul, and now either we are controlling it or have supplanted it with our own. Kris presumably can't survive for long without it but can for at least long enough to do their evil eye shenanigans for a currently unknown motivation. Kris doesn't need to have multiple souls in them if theirs is either replaced or controlled.

10:15 You have to keep in mind, though, that Flowey is an EXTREMELY unique case. 1: He used to be a monster, whose soul had fused with a human's soul. Which, by proxy, gave him access to determination. 2: He DIED. 3: He is now neither human nor monster - he is a FLOWER. Flowers don't need souls to survive. Kris is human. Kris has not died. (That we know of.) And Kris, being a living human, needs a soul to function and continue living. That's why they act the way they do when they take the soul out of their body, whereas Flowey doesn't. Because flowers don't need souls to survive. Humans do.

Something I’m surprised nobody ever mentions is the whole thing about Kris studying the occult with Catti. That has to be important somehow.

21:10 This unrelated footage implies the third soul is Berdly

15:00 I think Kris' potential motive is to search for answers in dark world. It is extremely dangerous, nonetheless possible.

Maybe the reason why kris opened a dark world on snow grave was because up until that point they’ve had positive experiences. They’ve been having fun with their friends. When they made the dark world they had Susie, who is not easily manipulated, and can call us out on our shit, Kris’s MOM, who will definitely keep us in check, and there’s also a badass police lady on the way, who can also keep us in check. I think their strategy is to surround themself with people who will stop us if we go too far, and keep us away from any manipulatable people. Toriel, Susie, and undyne will keep us from hurting anyone.

34:26 I feel like this is really reminiscent of the no-mercy run, when players would say "this is chara doing they evil >:(" it always bothered me when a theme of undertale was the morbid curiosity people have when playing games, and then not thinking of those actions and consequences in the game's world

Personally I really wanna know more about Kris as a person, because while they are described as this chaotic friendless weirdo who seems to not like people they have some moments that don't exactly go with that (namely the fact that they're the only one in the party who can really flirt and the whole dance cutscene from chapter 2 but I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting) and I think it would be really interesting to see how differently they act with people they're comfortable with vs this whole town of monsters who think of them as "THE human" or that fourth Dreemur instead of just Kris