I'm gonna forego my normal routine because, well... to be honest
I didn't expect this episode to be so difficult for me. Emotionally.
I know that I have kind of a persona or character that I PLAY for the effect of the show
and it's not me acting, I actually am kind of a hyperactive, intense person when I'm talking about things that I find exciting,
but the truth of the matter is that researching this topic wasn't
....exciting for me. In fact, writing the script was enormously difficult for me just because the act of reading about it, let alone
psychoanalyzing a mentally ill
adolescent and drawing conclusions was
..well, it was a thing.
In any case, it doesn't feel right to be my normal, "Hii, it's meee, Austin!"
shtick because, honestly,
it just wouldn't be authentic to how I feel,
and it's precisely because this topic is so difficult for me that I feel it's important to get through it—
not just for me, but for you too.
But enough dilly-dally, let's get into it.
Kris from Deltarune, the sequel-not-sequel of Undertale, isn't the hero of the story...
Susie is.
And I'll get around to explaining why that is later,
but first we have to talk about Kris, the protagonist of Deltarune.
You'll notice that while I called Susie the, "hero,"
I called Kris the, "protagonist,"
and this is because I paid attention in high school English and I actually read every single book that was assigned.
Hell, yes, even, "The Scarlet Letter," and I LIKED IT TOO, FIGHT ME!
Anyway, we typically think of, "hero," and, "protagonist," as
interchangeable because, well, in most narratives they are, but they actually aren't.
A hero,
according to a great summary from TV Tropes,
is "almost always right and a friend to all their teammates," and,
"morally superior." Anybody in the story can be a hero and while it's frequently the protagonist, it isn't always.
The protagonist in short is literally just the main
character— what the story is about— and sometimes, the main character is kind of a dick, like Mal Reynolds in
Firefly. Anyway, back to Kris. I love Kris. Kris is a kid with a vivid imagination, an imagination
that's so eloquent that they can actually tell a story
that's either so immersive that it makes the misanthropic and aloof Suzy actually enjoy playing along or it's
literally actually magic! Either way, it's awesome.
I'm sure I don't need to point out to you that all the toys, the stuffed animal in the corner, the checker pieces, the hammer, the
playing cards, are all
characters that appear in Deltarune's main playthrough. Or that the Light Fountain is
literally the light switch, or that the sword that you have equipped in the game turns out to be a pencil, or the stuff that
you had in your inventory is just a pile of trash, blah blah blah.
This is all the stuff you know
because you've either paid attention while playing or if you've watched Matt's video on this. But the theming of this story, whether it's a magical
manifestation of Kris' inner psyche or just an elaborate
visualization of Kris' play with Susy, betrays a troubled mind.
And in case you missed it while you were playing it, the game, or
chapter, concludes with an ending that is chillingly reminiscent of not just the ending of Undertale,
but the ending you get if you played a
pacifist run after doing a genocide run, where Kris rips out their own heart, throws it into a cage,
and brandishes a knife, before grinning maniacally... yikes!
P S Y C H O P A T H
Actually, that's not totally fair, but let's talk about the psychological profile of Kris for a second. Here's what we know:
Kris is a loner, not by choice; they have a strong imagination; they're adopted; Kris' adopted parents are divorced;
Kris has a strong imagination; Kris has an older brother;
Kris doesn't do well in school, doesn't have any notable
achievements, an affinity for weapons, as shown by the knife that they keep with them, has insomnia, misunderstood by parents, and expresses trauma
through creative storytelling.
We know some of these things pretty
obviously. Kris doesn't talk with their peers a lot, the character Noel mentions this to you
if you go around asking questions and exhausting all her dialogue options,
and she also mentions Kris covering themselves in ketchup to make it look like they're bleeding.
They're obviously adopted because Kris is the only human in town and their parents are goat people, and they're less
successful than their older brother when it comes to mainstream
accomplishments, as evidenced by the sheer volume of
accolades and trophies on their brother's side of the room, whereas their side is just sort of barren. And then, of course,
there's the knife and the gleeful evil grin.
Now, to people who have either played through the genocide run of Undertale or have seen it,
this ending probably immediately makes you think one thing—
Chara, which probably makes you think the next thing—
Sociopath! And both of these things are wrong!
I can do an entire video on why Kris isn't Chara, and maybe I will someday on shoddycast, uh.. over there, my other channel-
but this is science. So for now take it on faith that Kris isn't Chara, but perhaps more importantly, Kris is
definitely not a sociopath. Sociopathy, as it's known colloquially, or Anti-social Personality Disorder, is according to the
DSM-5: "A word that you can use in a
YouTube video, or up to six YouTube videos
in order to build suspense and hype around your documentary about an infamous YouTuber,
regardless of the possible damage you could be causing in the meantime for mentally ill people everywhere."
...Ok, I'm just kidding, but seriously, Anti-social Personality Disorder is a very specific diagnosis
and I could go through the effort of showing you each
diagnostic tick mark and going on about how antisocial behavior is a
spectrum and not a binary one or zero, or show you the test
I took answering for Kris that determines that they're on the spectrum, but not severely or whatever, but the truth of the matter is that
definitively, denotatively,
demonstrably, alliteratively, Kris cannot be a sociopath, because Kris is an adolescent.
They're in school and the very virtue of this, the fact that their brain is still developing, that their hormones are weird, that it's functionally
impossible to isolate factors and tests for them, is exactly why in order to be diagnosed with Anti-social
Personality Disorder, you must be over the age of eighteen.
BOOOOOM! Off on a technicality!
But no, there's more to it than that. Adolescents are diagnosed with Conduct Disorder in lieu of more definitive
diagnosis, like Anti-social Personality Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder,
et cetera, because these diagnosis is A:
(on screen)
and B: ... well, ok, that's actually it. But more on that later, because while it's possible that Kris has conduct disorder,
given their affinity for dangerous weapons,
it's not their primary condition.
Kris' primary issue is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),
which for those of you who know is a diagnosis that I have— a condition
I developed in my adolescent years, and is why this episode was so difficult for me;
it opened wounds that I didn't even know were still there,
but it's also why identify so much with Kris and it's also why I think I know where the story is going.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder can have, like, a million causes.
Anybody who's experienced trauma of any kind can have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
This can be abuse from an authority figure, near-death experiences, war or honestly, the combination of things are literally endless.
It was originally called, "Shell Shock," during World War I and II,
and it has evolved since then. People can actually be born with PTSD if their parent who's pregnant with them
experiences trauma themselves! Neat, huh?
Or... horrifying, whichever, anyway. Here are the signs and symptoms of adolescent or childhood
PTSD: reenactment of trauma through play, loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities, angry outbursts, irritability,
behavioral inhibition, reckless behaviors, regression, sleep disturbances, trouble concentrating in school,
emotional numbing, sadness, guilt, low self-esteem, inability to trust others, avoidance of memories or situations that trigger
memories of the events, flashbacks of the event in difficulty forming social bonds.
Holy crap! This is literally Kris to a T..!
PTSD also has a lot of comorbidity with Conduct Disorder, Depression and Bipolar Disorder,
but why am I telling you this? Well, for a few reasons, I think some folk walked away from Deltarune going,
"Holy crap! Kris is the villain! Look at that knife!" and I want to show you that that's reductive—
I used to carry a knife around when I was a young teenager.
I threatened a kid with it once! I used to shoplift,
I lied compulsively, I skipped school a lot, and I almost failed out several times. And what's the reason that I'm a fancy-schmancy
YouTuber who makes a living over analyzing video games and not in prison, or dead— something that I thought
100% was how my story ended when I was Kris' age? It's because I had a Suzy, several in fact!
Study after study has shown that along with therapy and selective serotonin reuptake
inhibitors, the biggest factor that decides whether or not an adolescent with severe PTSD will grow up to overcome
their mental illness is support networks and social connections,
friends— people that ground you and help you when you fall down. That's what's known as Network Orientation,
which can be defined as (on screen)
This is something that Kris had before Asriel went off to college, but no longer does, which is why they're doing so
terribly right now, and it's 100% why Suzy is the most important character in Deltarune,
in fact,
Suzy may be more important to Kris than Asriel because, Suzy?
Suzy is literally one of the only people who can relate to Kris. Sure,
she drags her feet when it comes to getting engaged in the story, but when she finally connects with the themes and structures,
when she finally gets what Kris is trying to convey,
not only does she embrace these relationships with these characters and actually
fights against the antagonists of the dark world to protect Kris,
she wants to come back, she wants to get to understand Kris more. I don't know what Kris' trauma is,
I don't know if it's because they're the sole survivor of humanity,
I don't know if it's his (their*) parents' divorce or because his (their) birth parents died or what. That's going to become
important as the story progresses and speculating on that is more Matt's realm than mine,
but that pulling out of your heart and putting it in a protective cage and
detaching from the world around you so that you can be safe from being hurt, the fear of
opening up to someone else, the fear of facing your trauma of feeling like you have to be armed to protect yourself against the world,
I get that Kris, I get that so much and I can say so to a certainty that Kris may be messed up,
but Kris is not the villain and I am super happy
you have a Suzy in your life, because Suzy is going to save you;
the allegorical themes of how Suzy is a younger analog for Undyne and embodies all the self-sacrificial
characteristics that make up what Toby Fox would describe as a, "True Hero," aside,
the fact that she's there, that she can better than anybody
understand the kind of serious stakes that Kris is going through... that, is a big deal and I am so unbelievably
psyched to see what happens next, because while your choices and my choices as players don't matter,
someone's does, and that someone made the choice to let down their walls and help another person,
and I think that's pretty awesome.
Sincerely, Austin
[thanks for watching! subtitled by raincones]