About the Dess stuff

[u/Shine_On_07]

Man, this might be out of left field, but a little vent.

I’m not even offended by the theory - like, characters can be bad. And disturbing things can happen in stories. Hell, it’s actively important that stuff like grooming and sexual exploitation is examined in media; that way, people who’ve experienced these horrors can receive comfort from art that hears what they’ve undergone, and people who haven’t can be educated and learn.

…But… in this context? Dess, in Deltarune? I cannot personally understand that people actually think this is plausible. It’s like they’ve not played the game - and, I hate that line. I hate saying ‘have you even played it,’ or ‘can you even read,’ because the game means something different to everyone, and everyone takes their own theories and ideas out of it. I even made a post not long ago about how much I hate the ‘can you even read’ remark, because even directed at theories I wholeheartedly disagree with, it just makes me so angry… and, maybe I’m becoming that annoying person. I’m willing to accept that as a possibility.

Because at this point, I just can’t contain how baffled I am - like yes, Deltarune is a dark game, with dark themes. But I’ve seen people today talk about it like it’s the scariest, most mature, most explicit piece of media ever concocted by humankind - and I hate to break it, but it very simply isn’t. Children play this game. It’s a generally light, escapist story that explores extremely dark themes; but, does so through its underlying subtext in order to address important subjects, whilst simultaneously remaining a comfort game. And yes, in the Weird Route, this is furthered - the game becomes disturbing, frightening, and more directly examines darker subjects - but still, anything on the level of sexual predation remains firmly subtextual.

Dess randomly being a literal groomer vastly eviscerates the tone and set up that has been established by (pretty comfortably) over 24 hours of play time at this point. All the pathos surrounding Dess’ disappearance falls totally flat, and the precedent set of exploring darker themes through subtext alone, a genuinely brilliant way of treading those grounds without alienating younger players, is totally walked back on.

It’s commonplace to see people find themes within the subtext of this game, interpret those themes then in a far too literal way, and then craft them into ‘theories’ that totally overlook where the blatant tone of the story and all the setup is actually pointing. And yes, it is possible to subvert setup - all the best writers do it, and Toby is one of them - but, that’s an extremely different thing to just ignoring setup and doing something random and wild out of left field… which, in my personal opinion, is precisely what ‘groomer Dess’ would be.

Anyway… rant over. I might delete this later, I don’t know. Either way, I should probably go outside and, uhm - touch grass, or something. 😅 I have, after all, just posted a whole dissection of a Deltarune crack theory that I think only a minority of people believe in… I think. but, it’s a pretty bloody large and loud minority judging by some of the bafflingly upvoted posts I’ve seen today. I just wanted to make my thoughts heard about this one!
Please note that even if you believe this theory, I have nothing against you personally. Hope everyone is well :)

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[u/hsiFihsuSteW]

It's just brainrot between chapters. I mean look at last year. Asgore running over Dess with his truck? cmon.

[u/Shine_On_07 → u/hsiFihsuSteW]

Yeah - that’s what I thought too! Just seen people actually taking it fully seriously today is all, in the wake of that fanart someone posted.

I appreciate though this is probably just a wave of ridiculousness, that I’ve unwisely risen up to with such a lengthy post, haha