"the Player Is A Character In Deltarune" Not As In "the Player Is Not Us" But As In "we Are Playing A

"the player is a character in deltarune" not as in "the player is not us" but as in "we are playing a role in a role-playing game, and that role comes with certain characteristics that we are assumed to have. there is a construct of 'player' that the game assumes we are."

the amount of times spamton lets kris know and emphasizes he won’t/can’t force them to do anything hits me so hard

he says it not just once, not twice, but three times. so its clearly really important to him that kris knows that.

if there’s one thing spamton deeply cares about, it’s the ability for people to make their own choices. to be able to think for themselves. just to have the option to follow their own judgment. you can of course, still persuade someone to do something, because if you persuade someone that’s still them weighing the pros and cons for themself. they still have the option to choose. he’s pretty principled in this regard.

he wants kris to be able to make their own choices too. as a puppet he can’t have that for himself, and he sees a kindered soul in kris—he sees them as an extension of himself, and so whatever logic applies to him applies to them as well, including his principle of the freedom of choice. that also means the concept of consent would be extremely important to him. he does not want to force his will upon others.

and that’s another point i should touch on. here’s another few lines that strike me as profound.

spamton immediately acknowledges after saying “NO, I DIDN’T HEAR ANYTHING JUST NOW!!!” that something was said, rendering the former line that he didn’t hear anything as bullshit. it’s really hard to put this into words, and i can’t describe it as anything other than desperate. he is so consciously aware of how fucked he is. but for whatever reasons he has a hard time being direct about it.

i do not believe this was due to some metatextual force preventing him from asking for help. i think it’s just his personality and his principles.

he doesn’t want to force his will on others. so he has to do it indirectly. he’d feel a bit of shame, i guess, in asking for help. i mean he does want help but he needs to ask for it indirectly. you know how some people are like, “just asking …. for a friend”? it’s EXACTLY like that. he knows he needs help and does want help but he can’t accept that. he can’t let himself seem cringe and maudlin with no good reason. so he has to cast his personal sentiment off into the objective ether and like, separate it from himself, or subject it to logical scaffolding. he doesn’t understand why someone would value individual sentiments over reason; it feels like an accident for him to be feeling something. unless he assumes control over it for the sake of creating a deliberate sentimental impact on others, he’s got the “if i said anything worrying no i didnt <3” mindset.

you could get it out of him but only if you sat down and went, “okay. let’s be real with each other..level with me. tell me your demons and i’ll tell you mine. fair?” and he realizes he has nothing to hide or lose. because what’s happening here is that you’d be giving him persmission—consent. he doesn’t want to drop something heavy on you if the context is not appropriate for it. he doesn’t want to impose his will on you. he won’t force you to listen, he can’t force you. the world does not move towards him, he moves towards the world. he needs your consent that it’s okay first. because otherwise he senses that he is bringing the atmosphere down. that is why spamton was so quick to brush off his cry for help. it wasn’t professional. it wasn’t in his controlled presentation that he chooses to manifest for the sake of others. and it’s like, “fuck i cant do that to a customer. fuck me. they don’t wanna hear that. i need to be a good host to them.” (and good GOD i feel that SO fucking hard it’s unreal. “how are you feeling?” hey hey that’s MY thing to ask. let’s not get too carried away.)

anyway. going back to the beginning, these lines, not only just by themselves in isolation, but also in the context of being repeated for emphasis, is genuinely one of spamton’s most touching aspects i think. auhhaaahhgghhh

I feel like Spamton would enjoy gambling, slot machines especially. I’m not sure why, it’s just a thought I had

I don't think so. He does say he is not in it for the money, but for the freedom. Plus you tend to lose more money than you gain...He would not want to re-live that.

I did hear a long time ago that casinos are apparently designed in such a way that it's easy to get lost in, and I think he would hate that.

I’m not trying to be like “Spamton was never happy” because I don’t think that’s accurate, but I don’t think that being famous was something he enjoyed as much as he makes it sound like he did.

A lot of celebrities will say that fame makes it harder to form relationships, because there’s always that question of “are they really my friend/lover/etc or do they just want to be near me because I’m famous” that lingers in the back of their minds.

Spamton probably had better relationships back when he was with the addisons, it’s easy for me to imagine him internally doubting his new friends and refusing to get overly close to them when he was a big shot, because he’s always worried about the possibility of them only liking Mr. Number 1 Rated Salesman 1997 and not the real, genuine Spamton G. Spamton that’s hidden behind his big image. 

And at this point, he doesn’t want anyone to see the genuine Spamton, that Spamton was unsuccessful and forgettable and it’s uncomfortable for him to think about who he really is. Or who he really “was,” because he’s trying his best to put his addison days behind him. He can’t fathom the idea that anyone else would want to see the genuine Spamton either, especially when he can be a big shot for them instead, so even if he made new friends that would have been supportive and would have wanted to get closer to him, he just pushes them away and stops them from forming any kind of deeper connections.

Also, it’s probably worse since he needed help to get famous. He wouldn’t be where he is without Mike and the person on the phone, and he’s so happy and grateful for his success, but it just makes his image seem all the more fake. He sees all the posters of his face around the city and thinks, is that really me? Is that really what people want me to be?

Oh god, and when he falls from grace and his business fails. That had to have been his worst fears coming true, because none of his new high-class friends were there to help him. As soon as he was no longer big, they just left him to struggle alone. 

What if he had tried to form a deeper bond with them, what if he hadn’t kept them at arm’s length the whole time and had been their friend instead of a friendly acquaintance? If there was something that he could’ve done to build those relationships, it was too late to do anything now, and he’d already left all of his old friends in the dust when he became big, so he’s burned all of his bridges. 

So Spamton has to face the consequences alone. Nobody hardly even notices him struggling. And after the neo fight, when it seems like he’s actually died, who is there to care about him? If his popular friends even noticed, they don’t comment on it, they don’t cry for him. 

The only one from his days of fame that seems to remember him? Swatch. Swatch has sympathy for him and his fate, but they’re giving him the kind of pity you’d give when you read in the paper that an old has-been celebrity died. It’s kind of them to speak of him in a sympathetic light despite everything, but at the same time it’s a cold, informal type of sympathy, not the kind of sympathy you’d show to a friend.

The only ones who on some level cared about Spamton through everything were the addisons. They pretend not to know him if asked, and if they were aware of what happened to him post-eviction, then they looked the other way, which was cruel of them. But there was probably bad blood on both sides here, and both Spamton and the addisons likely did and said some less than kind things to each other. I don’t think it’s fair to blame either party for the fallout Spamton had with them, it seems like they all had a hand in causing it.

But before everything went wrong, the addisons used to socialize with Spamton over at the cyber grill, they treated him like any other addison even back when he was small and unsuccessful. They were the only ones who even attempted to check on him after he was evicted. They go as far as to close their shops, the foundation for their sole purpose in life, just to take a moment to properly mourn him.

The addisons weren’t there for him as much as they should’ve been, but in the end, none of the people he knew when he was a big shot were willing to be a friend to him after things turned sour. It was only his old friends the addisons who still cared enough about Spamton to try to honor his memory in some way.

You ever think about how Undertale uses Flowey to break the 4th wall, without actually breaking the 4th wall? The game merely imitates the vocabulary of 4th wall breaks...

...through the words of a grieving boy who just wants his best friend back

That's why the fallen human is essentially our "role" in the story. That's why Flowey is set up as a player parallel. From beginning to end, this was always a story about Asriel and Chara. In Undertale's story, the role of "player" is, metanarratively, the role of a ghost.

That's why the story is so heavily character driven. That's why progress is marked by helping people move on from the past. That's why the game ends (and can only truly end) by asking us to let go.

It's a ghost story. It's all a fucking ghost story.

Sorry this is mostly unprompted I just had to get this out of my system.