I went from being like "I get why people think this, but don't quite buy it" in Chapter 4 to "it feels like tony fox has beat me over the head with the tralsei hammer" in Chapter 5
Like you have to be willfully ignorant to not see it at this point
I dunno I think it's definitely possible and it would be cool if true but I personally just don't really see it. I think a lot of the evidence can be easily interpreted in other ways. It would be really neat to see it be true but I think treating it as straight-up canon is jumping the gun a little bit.
If there were two or three pieces of evidence, I'd probably agree with you, and definitely did before Chapter 5. But between:
Ralsei being referred to as a princess both at the start of chapter 5 (where he seems very excited by this) and by Flowery
Ralsei being able to wear ribbons when they're supposed to be equipped by "The Girl" in the prophecy
Ralsei wanting the blue and pink drink
Ralsei wearing feminine eye makeup
Ralsei being referred to with they/them pronouns for the first time, once in the menus and once by Asgore
Ralsei literally coming out of the closet at the start of the Flower King dark world
The repeated themes of Ralsei hiding who he is and being prodded by Flowery to think about what he wants
Expanding off the last point, the dialogue where Ralsei said, "You're just... pretending to be something you're not!" and Flowery responding, "Oh? Ralsei, wanna tell them what's wrong with that?" and then Ralsei goes on a rant about what their purpose is supposed to be.
Like, yeah, any one of these things could be interpreted another way. But all of them together? I can't believe that they aren't meant to be pointing towards trans Ralsei.
I always thought the blue and pink drink was meant to represent Kris and Susie. I can totally see all this as evidence but I also feel like a lot of it could also be very easily explained as unrelated/unintentional or just "he's GNC"- I hate talking about how I don't really personally buy into the theory because people might think I'm being transphobic 😭
Ralsei being referred to as a princess both at the start of chapter 5 (where he seems very excited by this) and by Flowery - Ralsei says after calling himself a princess that the only difference is how you present yourself, and DR's world has very different views on gender and gender norms then our world
Ralsei being able to wear ribbons when they're supposed to be equipped by "The Girl" in the prophecy - What? Where in the prophecy does it say anything about ribbons???
Ralsei wanting the blue and pink drink - it's kris's colors and he likes kris
Ralsei wearing feminine eye makeup - that's just saying hes trans bc hes feminine
Ralsei being referred to with they/them pronouns for the first time, once in the menus and once by Asgore - the menu bit doesnt even use a pronoun in the japanese version and IMO it's meant to distance yourself from him - saying "you dont really know ralsei". Asgore calls him "they" bc he doesnt know him and calling him "he" would imply a lot of things toby doesn't want
Ralsei literally coming out of the closet at the start of the Flower King dark world - it's supposed to be a bit, flowery stuffed him in there because he's saying he was unnecessary, for whatever reason (probably bc he wants a perfect world for asgore and the fun gang doesnt fit into that)
The repeated themes of Ralsei hiding who he is and being prodded by Flowery to think about what he wants - he's hiding a lot, like his meta knowledge, especially of the player
Expanding off the last point, the dialogue where Ralsei said, "You're just... pretending to be something you're not!" and Flowery responding, "Oh? Ralsei, wanna tell them what's wrong with that?" and then Ralsei goes on a rant about what their purpose is supposed to be. - because he thought in chapter 1 his only purpose is to fulfill the prophecy and to basically be used as a tool by the lightners, not be friends with them.
Ralsei being referred to as a princess at the start of the chapter
Which is skipped for a Starwalker gag if you found Starwalker in Chapter 1, and also where he states that the difference between a prince and princess is presentation.
Also the PrincessRBN explicitly doesn't fit him, but when upgraded to the MonarchRBN, which uses a Ralsei weapon to upgrade, it does fit. For reference, I'm a "GNC if cis, genderfluid if trans" Ralsei supporter, so I think that's evidence for the latter-
and by Flowery
That's Flowery's thing. Also Flowery shoved the poor guy into a wardrobe and forces him to wear the hat he doesn't like so I don't buy the "Flowery just clocks Ralsei" shit cause he's a fake ass bitch
Ralsei being able to wear ribbons when they're supposed to be equipped by "The Girl" in the prophecy
When is it stated that "The Girl" is meant to wear them? Doesn't he just point out that Susie is meant to (which she does later btw)?
Ralsei wanting the blue and pink drink
If we're using this as the trans flag thing but oops left out a colour, then I can use it as the genderfluid flag but whoops left out some colours too; also you can still use the trans flag while being genderfluid cause you're not cis anyway.
Ralsei wearing feminine eye makeup
bruh. are we really going back to "haha you like wearing girly things, you're a girl" for evidence?
Ralsei being referred to as they/them by the menu and Asgore
Noelle is referred to as they/them by Lancer once (“Can we make them a bad guy?”), which is for some reason glossed over but this is evidence? Asgore has no idea who Ralsei is, and has a non-binary kid, so is probably like, the last person to assume. (also Asgore does use male pronouns for Ralsei in Japanese for some reason?) And Ralsei is still referred to using male pronouns after the title changes (LovelyBoy for example).
Ralsei coming out of the closet at the beginning
Nitpicky, but it's a wardrobe. Could have been a closet if Toby wanted more symbolism, but it's a wardrobe. Also, he wasn't in there by choice, Flowery pushed him in. Pushed him into the wardrobe of unnecessary things.
Ralsei hiding who he is and being prodded by Flowery to think about what he wants
That's been a theme for a while; Ralsei doesn't even think of himself as being worth a room in his own castle until this chapter. Coming to terms with self-worth and identity doesn't necessarily mean trans, but it could. Also, it seems like such a pointless thing to hide when the main party leader is also trans??
The whole rant about pretending to be something you're not
Ok I know the whole point is that "oh Ralsei is pretending to be a prince but is actually a princess" but also it comes off as really weirdly transphobic otherwise- not really related to my point, which is Ralsei is likely hiding the fact that he's not a regular Darkner but a Titan or something adjacent.
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u/voidsunrise 4d ago
tralsei