Susie and Lancer sitting in a tree... just hanging out!
Get your minds out of the gutters people!
Just because Susie is obviously head over heels for Lancer doesn’t mean there’s
a love story happening here!
Stop shipping them!
He’s a spade, she’s a monster!
It could never work!
It’s like Romeo and Juliet, but no one has died yet and Romeo is way cooler, and Juliet
really needs to brush her teeth.
That’s a good enough intro right?
I know it’s been awhile but I’m back (it’s Ryan by the way) and I’ve got some things
to share about this amazing little game called DeltaRune.
You may have heard about it from Grant, cuz he’s done two fantastical videos on it already,
but I want to make videos on DeltaRune too guys!
I was there! (show stream, editing stream pitch) It was halloween!
Don’t judge me, I like giraffes!
See Grant’s really got that lore on lock down, he’s got ideas flying this way and
that, but me, I’m the sentimental type.
I just got done crying like, 5 minutes ago.
When we were playing through DeltaRune I didn’t just see a story about a Dark World and some
legend, I saw real emotions being pulled and tested to their limit.
DeltaRune is more than just a story about saving the world from impending doom.
It’s about the characters within it finding their own path through each other.
I’m talking specifically about Lancer and Susie right now.
Because the first chapter of DeltaRune really isn’t about us: Kris, or Ralsei, or even
the story itself.
It’s about the two characters who changed because of the events we played through.
Susie..and Lancer.
Toby Fox has always had a knack for ingraining certain messages within his games.
And while the main message for DeltaRune may be that our choices don’t matter, it’s
far from the only thing he’s trying to express.
I’m here today to give you one more truth about DeltaRune, the real truth, about Susie
and Lancer.
Hit It!
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Now let’s get back to it!
When we first meet Susie there’s only one way to describe her: Mean.
And angry.
And a loner..
Also her breath smelled like chalk.
Okay, there’s many ways to describe her but they all essentially boil down to one
thing.
Susie was alone.
No one liked her and because no one gave her the time of day, she became more and more
bitter.
This isn’t exactly a new idea.
I’m sure many of us can think of someone we went to school with who had no friends
and was considered the weirdo, the loner, the person people didn't associate with.
I’m sure a lot of you watching the video might feel you fit into that category.
We all do at some point or another in our lives.
That’s Susie’s character.
She’s the loner with no friends and everyone deals with having that burden differently.
Some of us just wallow in the loneliness.
Some of us just get used to it and accept being alone, but Susie decided to steer into
the skid.
Instead of trying to open up, she completely closed herself off.
We can tell from the very beginning she doesn’t trust anyone.
She accuses Kris of ratting her chalk eating habits out to Alphy’s just because we happened
to see her doing it.
We don’t talk!
How would we rat you out?
YOU DON’T KNOW US!
MAYBE WE LIKE TO EAT CHALK TOO!
But Susie doesn’t care.
She puts on this incredibly mean persona because it’s what people expect of her.
She’s been slotted into a role and instead of breaking free from it she’s acting the
part.
But..then we go to the dark world.
And everything changes.
And Lancer, he’s the key to all that change.
Our first meeting with Lancer already inspires change for Susie.
Lancer tells us his sweet two step plan: to thrash us and then we lose.
You can almost feel Susie’s chuckle as she responds and compliments Lancer on his plan.
This isn’t surprising considering what we know about Susie.
We literally can’t stop her from attacking for the first half of the game.
What surprised me is Lancer’s reply, “R-really...?”
This is a critical moment to understanding Lancer.
This spade just cycled in with a mediocre explosion seemingly out of nowhere and claims
he’s “The bad guy”.
Pretty confident entrance, if not a little quirky.
But this one line shows Lancer’s inner feelings about himself.
He’s extremely unconfident and unsure of himself.
Lancer’s just doing what he thinks is right, trying to make his father proud.
It’s obvious from his reaction Lancer isn’t exactly complimented day in and day out.
In fact he’s likely craving praise.
From what we learn about Lancer, the guy certainly isn’t getting the attention, respect and
help he needs at home.
His father is strict and quite possibly a bit psychotic.
Okay, scratch that, DEFINITELY a bit psycho.
And just look at how he treats Lancer right before our fight with him.
The king of Spades doesn’t listen to his son at all.
It’s so dismissive and disappointing.
He tells Lancer he’s failed, and really puts his self esteem in the toilet.
Then he threatens Susie with Lancer’s life, telling us that he’ll drop Lancer over the
edge of the castle unless we kneel before him.
Not exactly dad of the year.
The King doesn’t care about Lancer at all.
His father actually orders subjects to hang out with Lancer and do what Lancer says and
wants.
It’s no wonder the guy had a bit of a moment just because Susie said it was a good plan.
He’s never been praised for anything in his life.
Lancer is alone, completely alone.
This is the real message behind DeltaRune, aside from the lore.
We have two characters with horrible problems in their lives.
Susie is bitter and because of it she believes no one could possibly like her or be her friend.
So she’s closed herself off, taking it upon herself to be the person everyone expects
her to be.
And then we have Lancer, equally alone but from different circumstances.
Lancer is alone from a lack of parenting, from the obviously abusive and neglectful
relationship with his father and from the begrudging company he gets from the servants.
He’s the other side of Susie’s coin.
Instead of steering into the skid he’s desperate for attention, for someone, anyone to notice
and care about him in a real and meaningful way.
And these two sets of emotions end up mixing together over and over and changing each character.
The first example of this is when Susie tries to scare Lancer and makes fun of his scary
Santa laugh.
Susie is trying to act mean, to be the tough and scary person people think she is.
But, Lancer responds in the complete opposite way Susie expected.
Instead of getting freaked out, Lancer thinks Susie is trying to teach him how to do an
evil laugh.
He thanks her and specifically says “it was kind of you”, the polar opposite of
how Susie was trying to act.
We can see afterwards that Susie is taken aback, but does compliment Lancer in her mind
after he leaves.
The next time we meet Lancer he’s using Susie’s laugh and when he’s done monologuing
specifically asks Susie if he did a better job than the time before.
She initially takes it as an insult, but then Lancer says “You’re really cool at being
terrifying!
I wanna be as scary as you!”
Susie turns away, then comes over to Lancer and asks, “You... want to be like ME?”
That face Susie is making lets us know everything.
This is an entirely new experience for her.
Someone...likes her.
Wants to be like her.
Looks up to her.
And Susie just doesn’t know how to handle that because she’s been told her entire
life through everyone else’s actions that no one likes her at all.
Just look at her classmates.
So many of them make comments about how we “Survived Susie” when we finally get out
of the dark world.
Of course she’s going to have a toxic attitude if no one ever gives her a chance.
But Lancer does, without even meaning to.
It’s no wonder Susie changes teams shortly after that.
She’s even excited about Lancer’s monogrammed jackets and seems a tad nervous about the
sleepovers cuz we all know what’s going to happen at those sleepovers...popcorn and
movies!
But she obviously wants to spend time with Lancer because Lancer likes spending time
with her.
The next few times we see Susie and Lancer they’re just hanging out, doing friends
stuff, until we eventually bring them both back on our side.
In fact, if you take the pacifist route during that battle, Susie stops the fight just because
Lancer doesn’t want to.
She’s acting in response to his needs instead of just hers.
When Susie returns to our team it makes Lancer really sad, he feels like he might lose his
only friend.
And Susie does the only thing she can to comfort him, letting him join our team.
The final and most important moment with these two comes right after we free Susie from her
jail cell.
Susie runs into Lancer, who confesses it was under his orders that the rest of the team
got locked up.
Susie feels completely betrayed.
This person, the one person who has ever shown her acceptance of who she is, has locked her
in a cell.
We can tell just how heartbroken she is by her dialogue.
“It’s fine.
It’s fine actually.
You don’t have to say anything.
I...get it.
I get it, y’know.
Why would anyone...really wanna be my friend anyway?”
Lancer is completely taken aback.
He not only wants to be her friend, he’s desperate to preserve that friendship.
The entire reason he had Susie and the others locked up was to keep them alive.
It was to protect Susie, not hurt her.
And Lancer shows this during their fight.
Despite Susie’s constant attacks Lancer will not fight back.
He actively avoids hitting Susie’s heart in the end.
Susie realizes Lancer isn’t reciprocating halfway through the fight, and before she
delivers the final blow, she intentionally misses.
She doesn’t want to hurt Lancer.
She doesn’t want to fight him.
For once, she doesn’t want to fight.
And it’s because of Lancer.
This is a revelation and it all came from Lancer’s kindness and care.
These two needed each other.
These souls were completely alone at the start of this journey.
They each have one issue, the same issue: Loneliness.
And it took finding each other to realize they didn’t need to be alone.
In fact, both Susie and Lancer made more than just one friend that day, they made three.
But we didn’t do anything.
We didn’t show her acceptance, we didn’t try to be her friend.
Lancer did.
And it made all the difference.
This is the lesson Toby Fox was trying to show us.
We’ve all experienced what it’s like to be lonely.
Some of us have experienced it for long stretches, years, possibly our whole lives.
It’s not fun, and it does things to your mind.
You don’t think you’re worth anything.
You don’t think anyone could ever find you fun or like hanging out with you.
You don’t think anyone could ever possibly look up to you, because why would they?
You’re nothing, and they’re something.
So many of us have gone through that at some point or another.
And that loneliness sucks, but y’know what?
We’re not alone.
Somewhere out there, likely someone you know has or is experiencing that exact same thing.
And all you need to do is find them, reach out, and even if it doesn’t work perfectly
at first, you can form a connection, a friendship, and help drag each other out of it.
Susie and Lancer both led pretty depressing lives.
No one would give them a chance.
Until they found each other.
There’s something sad in that story.
That two lonely people had to find each other to feel accepted, when there were so many
others around them who could have just reached out to either of them, but there’s something
beautiful about them lifting each other up and out of that sadness too.
That’s the truth behind Susie and Lancer’s relationship.
It may have been a bumpy ride, but the message shines through brightly.
We’re never truly alone.
And you never know when someone might be just around the corner that can change your life
for the better.
So that’s it, and I will admit, Susie and Lancer are pretty shippable.
But before you ship out you should ship some clothes to yourself!
Cuz seriously Bombfell is awesome and super easy!
Look at this shirt!
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So go check it out!
You’ll be supporting us and all you gotta do it click the link in the description or
go to Bombfell.com/Treesicle!
That’s all from me today.
My name’s Ryan and I’ll see you guys next time, toodles!