A Thematic Analysis of Freedom in Deltarune

The concept of freedom in Deltarune is one that has had a lot of insight regarding theorising. However, I feel like it's also a concept that requires my classic rigour of not really answering the question and just talking about themes! Join me in a dive beneath the freedom sauce.
Timestamps:
Intro (Smells Like Freedom): 0:00
The Spoken Thesis (Your Choices Don't Matter): 1:22
Escapism Room (Everything Came Crashing Down): 6:34
The Real Theme is Cringe (Despite Everything, It's Still You): 11:29
Outro (Sweet Sweet Freedom Sauce): 17:48
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My Twitter: / vivat_veritas
Music used (from Deltarune unless specified otherwise):
Girl Next Door
Here We Are (Undertale)
It's Raining Somewhere Else (Undertale)
You Can Always Come Home
Undella Town (Pokemon Black/White)

[@andrew_cunningham]

Obsession with a video game fandom can escalate to an unhealthy and life-destroying extent? Nah, can't relate. Definitely didn't spontaneously hug a random co-worker at McDonald's one time in 2015 because she was the first person I'd met who was into Undertale. And it totally wasn't weird for the rest of the shift afterwards, either. With the idea of freedom in DR, my initial impulse is, as usual, to consider it from the standpoint of Toby's classic trick: take an ingrained video game trope, make it diegetic, and watch the fireworks. "Your choices don't matter" definitely fits the bill as an ingrained trope. By their nature, video games are experiences of limited interactivity- players are given the illusion of freedom, but can only do things that the developer explicitly took the time to put into the game. Any other option, by default, has to be brushed under the rug somehow. Toby lampshades this inevitable railroading even in his Earthbound Halloween hack (albeit with the lack of coherence and follow-through characteristic of said hack) so we know this has been something on his mind for a while. As for the "make it diegetic" part, it's certainly less overt than the whole _POWER OF DETERMINATION_ thing in Undertale, but I think you're on the right track here. There's a more grounded sense of claustrophobia in the atmosphere of Hometown- a claustrophobia you'd run into growing up in any small town IRL. The characters are also still in school, meaning their days are literally regimented out for them. The same faces every day, the same things to do, the same unresolved tension in the relationships you're surrounded with... yeah, short of setting the story in a literal prison I think that's a pretty good stab at manifesting the restrictive nature of video games as a tangible element of the game's world. I wonder how the conceit will progress. Themes of freedom and creativity also, in my opinion, feel a lot more relevant to the real world than any of Undertale's musings on save scumming and suspension of disbelief. To be clear: it really doesn't matter to me how relevant Undertale's themes are to reality- I'm just as happy if it's a self-contained thought experiment about video games for their own sake- but I've always felt that attempts to read meaningful IRL commentary into Undertale beyond "violence is not the answer" come off as huge reaches compared to what you can glean from just the first two chapters of Deltarune.

[@stuff31]

Andrew, is that you?

[@partymix1997]

good to know we are expecting a video within a year (margin of error: when the ouroboros finally stops) and this basically means vivat is invited to deltacast 2 also i agree toby has been at great lengths fine tuning the video game diegetic balance and DR is therefore a toby fox game of all time. also how did you find this person

[@lemonlordminecraft]

@@stuff31 are you the mcdonalds employee

[@andrew_cunningham]

@@lemonlordminecraft I don't think so, but I also curious.

[@steppindown6874]

@@andrew_cunningham It's the legend himself!

[@aylin6766]

16:55 Judging by what susie said in the diner in that 2022 status update ("Kris, anyone tell you your family is goddamn weird") Toriels reaction to the DW will get pretty unpredictable.

[@youngjellyfish8694]

im literally so excited for chapter 3 and onwards, because regardless of the implications of what susie said here, it means that were gonna go through a LOT of interesting story and really dig deep.

[@taciturninsomniac]

9:10 Nobody can leave and the internet is out. Aside from phonecalls, the people of Hometown have close to no contact at all with the outside world right now. Idk what that means but it makes me a little nervous.

[@marsgreekgod]

thank you so much. so many people say "your choices don't matter" is 100% the theme of detlarune and refuse to believe me when i say it's like "kill or be killed"

[@youtubeneedstochange4414]

"Your choices don't matter" was literally one sentence spoken by one character in Chapter One, and the events of Chapter Two actively contradict it, so it baffles me when people say it has to be the main theme of the entire game.

[@massiveidiot77]

@@youtubeneedstochange4414 and yet regardless of what you do, the ending is the same

[@rubyfox6997]

​@massiveidiot77 what did you want to change about the ending no one in the ending besides Kris even knows about the snowgrave route so how would it change

[@massiveidiot77]

@@rubyfox6997 if the snowgrave route is supposed to contradict choices not mattering, the ending would have been different in some way. Yet regardless of which route you took the ending is the same. Therefore your choices don't matter

[@kerran4550]

@@massiveidiot77 Idk about you but the steam page of Deltarune has a quote which says: “Only one ending…?” with a *question mark*, so there may be more than 1 ending, idk.

[@rifsixteen7681]

The themes of being obsessed over fiction have definetly been planted already, the mystery of Dess feels tailor made to get people speculating, between the cryptic circumstances of her disappearance and the DT site straight up telling you to "find her". I feel like the intention is to get people really invested into what happened to Dess, only to sweep the rug under the player's feet and acknowledge that obsessing over a missing (and possibly dead) person is actually kind of messed up.

[@chongwillson972]

10:49 i think something which you can dig into is that ralsei also fulfills the theme of isolationism and loneliness after all we find ralsei completely alone in castletown, instead of it being a house or something small, its a empty town which implies loneliness and ralsei is also unique in the fact his dark world is one with only one person in it. this implies that ralsei has either loss everyone he knew or didnt really had anyone that he knew , and his overt need to please susie and kris and other people in general, even if they want to abuse him... and to tie it with the theme of escapism , it can be interpreted that ralsei is given himself fully to his role of being the prince of the dark from the legend since has nothing else in his life, he admits himself he dosent know what being himself even is like...

[@Chowder_T]

Great video, I always look forward to watching them when I see them in my subscriptions. In the Jackie Chan movie, The Legend of the Drunken Master (Drunken Master 2 outside of America), there's a line that goes something like "a boat can float in water but it can also sink in it." The line is referring to alcoholism but I think it's pretty applicable to escapism too. Fantasy is powerful, it has the potential to affect change in oneself and, in the right conditions, the world. But one should never lose sight of the bigger picture and let the fantasy control them.

[@andrew_cunningham]

Hell yeah, Drunken Master 2.

[@doom64hunter]

At the end of the game Toby is just going to call out everyone for being obsessed with this series for so long.

[@antonlongbow5122]

Pretty much like the creator of Evangelion with the remakes.

[@RaysonWilliams]

I dont think thatll happen, Toby Fox doesnt seem like the type of person to punch a gift horse in the mouth.

[@ThatBrownMink]

The Lightners may perceive and use the Dark World as an escapist fantasy, but that does not mean they are mistaken for doing so. Aside from the Weird Route, the Lightners and Ralsei learn something about themselves during their stay in the Dark World: Susie peels away some of her "tough girl" facade, Berdly admits that he let success get to his head, Ralsei accepts Susie as she is, and Noelle finds that hiding can't solve her problems. These changes, with the exception of Berdly, edify the characters in a way their lives in Hometown cannot. If there are more important things than "reaching the end," they are the relationships we build before it arrives.

[@TheSkyGuy77]

Snowgrave comes across (to me, anyway) like an old timey creepypasta. Where a person ""discovers"" an alternate play style that's not obvious to most. (Kinda like the creepy game things Noelle was interested in, as revealed by the Spamton Sweepstakes). Maybe the whole game will end on a similar way to a creepypasta, where the big bad is really the "player", who needs to be banished so the characters can live in peace without some eldritch horror controlling their lives.

[@Izunundara]

This is my favourite prediction so far: The final boss will have the Player as a separate entity fighting, either alongside Kris, or AGAINST Kris, based on which route you went down

[@cheshirecreeper3743]

Ralsei is...interesting as a character. You could (and I should) make an entire video essay on his character.

[@believeinthenet]

Toby Fox was also inspired by Moon Remix RPG Adventure, and the ending message of that game is more or less don't let yourself be sucked in by games or other media, instead use them to enrich your life in the real world

[@reversedragon3]

"it consumed people, friendships, and communities" "sometimes the media can consume you back" see, I think the issue here is deeper than we think it is. a lot of people now are totally isolated from each other and essentially _require_ fictional media products to connect them into a community, whether those people are 15 years old and having trouble fitting in at school or 25 with still no social life. people have let their entire lives become divided into a limited existence at work, a limited existence buying stuff at somebody else's work, or a limited existence at home, and public spaces and community have pretty much disappeared. (some people try to bring up the phrase "third places" but that does not really explain anything because most of those are somebody's work and all of them easily get slurped into the sharp divide between work and home.) in this landscape media can never exactly be an escape because in many cases they become uniquely designed as a social experience for each person to drag more people into, and even when they are not, as with an entirely single player game, a lot of the value of the experience is still in interacting with others over it. whenever anyone creates fiction either with a goal or incidental result of making money, the money is effectively being made on slowly constructing a community of people into a particular territory representing a fanbase. [*] meanwhile, whenever people try to cope with this weird new world of isolated people and packaged social experiences, it's easy to begin uncovering problems in relationships as you see some particular entertainment product pull another person in very effectively and not you (or vice versa), revealing fundamental differences in your personalities you know you won't be able to tolerate in other situations. it's like, we live in a weird new world where content creators have taken on a fundamental responsibility of constructing human beings into a society at all through creating a product that partly does the work of expressing their emotions for them and creating small chunks of society called fanbases or fandoms. it is easy to think that people's deep obsession with fictional universes is their individual fault, but what if it's not? what if it's the fault of the other people in the fandom? what if it's the fault of creators constructing all those people together to make money? [*] what if it's the fault of everybody allowing community to get slurped up into workplaces and art territories so they can casually go to work every day without worrying about anybody else? the overall system is very complex and I don't think it's so easy to assign that kind of individual blame. [*] money is an odd thing to mention with Deltarune, I know, but Undertale did fall under "incidentally making money", so here I'm considering Deltarune to be either something of a side effect of Undertale collecting people together, or a version of the process that entirely focuses on the step of collecting people without thinking about money.

[@dylanstephens524]

I've got a theory that i call: personalized dark world theory.(or pdw theory if you want to abbreviate it) the idea is that some darkners take something from the memory's or traits of lightners. this is following the Idea that Kris might not be the knight like people have suggested at the end chapter two There is currently three dark worlds at the moment: 1) the dark world we meet ralsei in 2) the main dark world of chapter 1(or as i call it the card kingdom) 3) the cyber world This actually would solve the problems with Ralsei, since if ralsei was created from Kris's memory's of asriel that would explain why he looks like asriel in the first place. As for the other dark worlds well I'll pick out the one's I've noticed: The chaos king is based around Susie's personality being selfish and agrresive to a fault but does have a heart as he does actually care for lancer and fondly speaks of him if you talk to the chaos king at the beginning of chapter 2 Jevil and spamton talks about being free symbolise Kris's wishes of being free from your control That's darkners that i can see have been effected but maybe there are some others i missed

[@prismaux5168]

Really lovely video. I adore the way you talk about these games (your voice is very nice to listen to)! Great analysis as always.

[@Vivat_Veritas]

This means a lot as someone who is very insecure about their voice. Thank you so much!

[@YouMayKnowMeAsNate]

Im mad that I’m subscribed and KZbin still didn’t give me a notification about this video. It only showed up in my recommended 3 weeks later

[@XtreemAlan]

Speaking of Undertale AUs, I find it nostalgic that Undertale Yellow is also getting AU treatment (so far I’ve seen Underfell Yellow, some Outertale Yellow, a lot of Deltarune and Deltatraveler Yellow, and the development of Underswap Yellow)

[@twentysixbit]

Fantastic analysis. Keep up the good work!

[@antifagoat6591]

My thoughts about what's going on with Ralsei that may or may not be relevant: In the "Deltarune" universe, Toriel and Asgore clearly waited until they were a bit older to have a child. Who can say why? But we know Asgore is bad at naming things, and no matter what universe he's in, he probably would have named their eventual son Asriel. Ralsei is not (just) Kris's projection of what Asriel should be, but also ours. The Asriel we all knew and loved from "Undertale" never existed in "Deltarune." For all intents and purposes, this is another completely different child of Toriel and Asgore. He just got saddled with a familiar name because he had no choice in being named that. The name is only familiar for us. The players. Just like the whole Hometown world, Asriel is only familiar because we've played "Undertale." Ralsei he knows he is not really the DT or the UT Asriel, and that he will only be loved and cared about if he can keep us coming back to fulfill the prophecy.

[@Jay-ys2cf]

My favourite Deltarune creator!

[@zeo4481]

12:00 Perfect analysis! I was exactly 15 when Undertale came out. 14:29 Teen.. Titan .. 😆😲😲😲 great one, i couldn't stop smiling (I'm so sad this show never concluded) 14:53 I have 30 000 hours in Terraria.... I may have a problem.

[@raiden5181]

30000?

[@SoundtrackDetector]

​@raiden5181 terraria is that kind of game my friend I don't have nearly that many, but dang is it replayable

[@YouMayKnowMeAsNate]

Congrats on 1k subs!

[@sleepyheadlbp55]

19:39 Homestuck??? wow. but no, really, I love these videos! great work!

[@godslaughter]

I think the police tape is there because of the preparations for the festival, I don't think it has anything to do with Asgore.

[@CalamitasCalliope]

Lovely video! I'm so glad I came across your channel. Also, the audio in this video is very good! It's much better than the audio of the last videos(which were still good just that this video is such a great step up in terms of audio). I'm excited to see whatever you make next!

[@667link5]

I've always thought that the police tape near Noelle's house was the place where they were setting up the festival for later in the week

[@supermemoluigi]

i guess that in this case, even if there will be one ending and no matter what you do you'll always have the same ending, what matter is the kind of path you're taking, since the same ending will have different meaning depending on your actions. for example in chapter 2 we see how this affected Noelle and Berdly dispite having the same ending, alongside with Susie feeling weird when she said that doesn't felt they save something today and some minor things being different in the light world.

[@massiveidiot77]

I love the true lab theme!

[@partymix1997]

you always make great videos keep it up (unless it's to hard then do it at a pace you feel comfortable with or just stop or less extreme, take a break) its a shame these DR youtubers are still small for yt standards yours especially and i hope that one day the algorithm will bless all of you. also, what is your favorite line from DR

[@Vivat_Veritas]

Thank you for the encouragement! I really appreciate it. My favourite line from DR is probably the "FEAR" section of Spamton's dialogue. Specifically the phrase "encyclopedia of being afraid" really scratches an itch for me!

[@twentysixbit]

It's nice to see someone else taking a stab at these analysis videos after Andrew Cunningham kinda gave up the ghost on these in favor of streaming

[@andrew_cunningham]

For the record: the streaming is just something I do for fun once a week. I'm working on another DR video right now. I agree that Vivat makes good stuff though.

[@twentysixbit]

@@andrew_cunningham Oh! Well, that's good to hear

[@tearsofthekingdom9062]

In snowgrave Berdly is kinda sorta probably dead...

[@SOLROX_]

I think that your (the player) choices dont really matter... but noels choices do

[@_kartofeleek]

Great video

[@FullbringerQuincyGlazeGod]

FREEEEEEEEDDDOOOOMMMM!!!!!!

[@NRobbi42]

I guess I didn't get the notification a month ago. Thanks KZbin.

[@alexxio8656]

Hey I found this video interesting and clicked on it while searching for another deltarune video essay. This is an amazing video but I need some help finding the video I was originally looking for. The video I’ve been looking was a general analysis of all of deltarunes characters and their impact on the story its creator made a video like this for both chapter 1 and 2 and had a male voice. Both videos had a house background with a representation of the creator sitting in either and armchair or rocking chair on it can’t remember which. Thanks for your help.

[@crowofdionysia6200]

13:55 pta sans

[@FunnyAngeli]

another banger of a video on a game I haven't played yet ! :D (hope to soon though lol)

[@Over0w0MeAmTheHotel]

Genocide and No mercy are 2 different routes. In No mercy you don’t go out of your way to kill everyone but you can’t spare them. In genocide however, you go out of your way to kill everyone and everything because you think you’re above consequences.

[@Vivat_Veritas]

I have not heard them used as two different ideas before, thanks for letting me know! To be honest, I'll probably just keep calling it the No Mercy route just out of habit oops

[@Over0w0MeAmTheHotel]

@@Vivat_Veritas ah ok

[@Summer_turtle_]

Wow 12 hours went by fast

[@sahilhossain4335]

Lore of Deltarune control

[@sans-_-7880]

As I remember Undertale has 92 endings