In chapter 5, a few of the menus (such as the title description at the end of the chapter) use they/them for Ralsei:
(All Ralsei's title descriptions in chapters 2-4 and all but one in chapter 1 do not use any pronouns, the one in chapter 1 that does use pronouns uses he/him.)
Should this be mentioned on Ralsei's wiki page?
The pronoun is used for the "dark vine" metaphor
Can we just agree on a character's gender for once please?
He's a prince, okay? At least for now. And up until this chapter, he's been referred to as he/him. So why assume he'll become trans or something?
For what it's worth, Asgore also refers to Ralsei with they/them pronouns in the dark fountain room. I don't see how the dark vine metaphor is related to this; if anything, it'd say "watering its own thorns", since vines are inanimate objects.
what he said
Aha, that's just because he doesn't know Ralsei's gender!
It's ambiguous in the sentence, but Ralsei is a prince so
YOUR RIGHT
While I think the two instances of Ralsei using they/them in this chapter are innocuous enough in a vacuum, I feel like the context provided by Chapter 5 as a whole makes their usage feel a lot more intentional, at least to me.
Chapter 5 has a lot of transgender subtext regarding Ralsei, to a degree that referring to it as "subtext" at all feels like kind of an understatement. Simply off the top of my head:
This is in a chapter which already has a considerable amount of transgender subtext outside of scenes involving Ralsei. (Seth quite literally has a conversation expressing uncertainty over their gender identity, Orange is defined by her desire to choose a label that fits herself regardless of others' expectations of her, and the Shadow Crystal boss is a character already established to be a trans woman.)
And additionally, since some of these points have been brought up...
To be clear: I am not saying the wiki should treat Ralsei as definitively being transgender, because it hasn't been stated explicitly in the text of the game and treating it as though it is would be bad wiki practice. That being said, the amount of subtext that is present in Chapter 5 is difficult to ignore, and I think the apparent shift in the pronouns used for Ralsei is worth taking note of. Toby Fox has never been one to shy away from including queer themes across Undertale and Deltarune, and I am strongly under the impression Ralsei may be no exception.
WRONG, after that all ribbons become available to Susie (trust me, I equipped all the ones I had to her to see her reactions)
Ope, my bad. That one's on me. 
Gotta get that sweet sweet flavor text
as an objective source of information, the wiki shouldn't make the calls on whether or not ralsei is transgender or not. however it's 100% intended subtext that should be noted atleast in the trivia, and "they/them" added to ralsei's pronouns on the infobox.
and "they/them" added to ralsei's pronouns on the infobox
This was basically my original question, should we do this? Probably, given the game does as mentioned by many people in this discussion thread use they/them for Ralsei... but I'll leave that up to those who actually know how to edit wikis properly.
Wow, this is a pretty great analysis for day one. Your awareness (in both senses of the word) is commendable.
I wouldn't say the pink and blue or the princess stuff can be concrete evidence, as flowery calls everyone "Princess", and pink and blue is kris' color scheme, and the other one is green and white, ralsei.
I went through the scripts to check, the only usages of “they/their/them” for Ralsei is the one title and Asgore at the end. Asgore notably doesn’t know Ralsei, and Toby tends to default to those in that circumstance (see Lancer saying of Noelle “Can we make them a bad guy?” right after she joins).
Also, there are examples of “him” being used after the vine climb (which causes the title change), R-Acts against a boss (“Ralsei gives his all!”) and a boss's dialogue after you lose (“Kris, you better figure him out. ‘Cause he doesn’t even understand himself…”). Ralsei clearly has identity issues in general, but they almost always go back to his identity of a Darkener and believing his only purpose is to be useful to Lightners.
I really think adding "they/them" to his pronouns is a MASSIVE jump of the gun, and seems in line with other "casual/unclear" usage of singular they/them for other characters in the game. I think it should be removed, to avoid confusion, until there are more sources for it. Especially since the title is added there are MULTIPLE instances of He/Him being used exclusively for Ralsei (also including the FluffyBoy attack, and the platforming hint where it calls being used as a platform is a "Boy's Treat for a guy like him.")
I do need to correct that the only 2 (and it is only 2) instances happen after you climb the vine, not after the conversation with Flowery. There are also overwhelmingly more sources of he/him being used past that point as well.
The titles don't generally have gendered terms in them at all, and we have examples of "they/them" being used for gendered characters (like Noelle) by characters unfamiliar with the character. It's also worth remembering that Toby is working with a team now, and some of them are helping write, and things like this might slip through.
Flowery also calls everyone a princess, fwiw because he's coded as an Otome style character and he uses incorrect words and phrases to fit a lot of his canned voice lines (Seth points this out in a break convo with Ralsei, to which they both express frustration with it).
Just trying to clear up some misinformation about when the they/them happens (twice, and only once by a character), and the situations surrounding it.
I don't think we can, in good faith as wiki custodians, claim there is a pronoun shift occuring here. It is overwhelmingly still he/him even past that point, I combed through the script to be sure as you can see in my other post.
I think his info box should just say "he/him" for his pronouns until we get more examples, but the they/them mention in his title could warrant a trivia footnote until there's more clarity? Looks like someone already added it to the info box though, which prompted me to take a look deeper and then to come here to discuss it.
In addition to this, the official Japanese translation (co-written by Toby Fox), to the best of my knowledge, does not support the pronoun reading at all.
Firstly, the "Dark Vine" line, here:
闇ヅル(LV5)
専用イバラに
水やり。
specifically does not include any personal pronoun and no explicit subject, indicating that the use of they/them isn't an important textual choice, otherwise this would've been reflected in the localized text. In English, the "they" could colloquially be referred to as the vine itself and not Ralsei, especially since this isn't the first time titles have been used to compare characters to other objects.
Dark Bead | Broken off, but still locked
As for Asgore's lines about Ralsei:
(…不思議だ。見たところ
アズリエルに
少し似ているが…)
＊ (それでも…
見れば見るほど…)
＊ (…この子は 本当に
モンスターなのだろうかと
疑問が わいてくる)
＊ (そんな姿をしていても
クリスは 彼を
受け入れている…)
＊ (彼自身も^1 自分を隠す必要
などないことを わかって
くれたら いいのだが)
Asgore specifically refers to Ralsei as kare (he) and kare-jishin (he himself). This too, indicates that the intent of the line in English wasn't to establish they/them as personal pronouns for Ralsei, but instead it was to show Asgore's unfamiliarity with Ralsei in general.
Overall given these facts, I don't think it'd be accurate just yet to display they/them as a personal pronoun of Ralsei's, since this text either doesn't exist or is contradicted by the official localization played by nearly half the fanbase. I could be wrong about some of these conclusions since I'm not particularly fluent in Japanese, so any corrections would be much obliged.
Actually just went through it in Japanese myself, yeah, there is no "they/them" in the title at all and Asgore specifically uses he/masculines to refer to Ralsei. I can provide screenshots if anyone wants 'em. Roughly translates out to:
"(...How strange. From what I can see, he looks a little like Asriel, but...)"
"(But still... the more I look at him...)"
"(...I find myself wondering if this child is truly a monster.)"
"(Even though he looks like that, Kris accepts him...)"
"(I wish he himself would understand that there's no need to hide who he is.)"
It would be very weird to "confirm" pronouns/gender in one translation, but not the other, especially if it is an important character trait.
Personally my take is:
I could see Ralsei being bigender or genderfluid, it would fit his Ch5 dialogue just as well. Gender identity isn't always M>F after all.
I do feel a bit iffy with the whole idea of "they were expressing femininely and therefore they were trans", it feels like it would undermine a lot of discussion of the character before now and it's not quite that simple in reality. (Some of this is from experience).
I don't think Ralsei choosing to present in a specific way necessarily influences his gender, being a male princess would fit just as well with the themes of him being who he wants to be.
I'm just hoping it doesn't undermine anything is all.
let's please stay on topic. this isn't about how people would feel if ralsei came out as trans or what people headcanon, this is about how we should handle ralsei's page.
40 comments in a day and most of them being unrelated to the topic is nuts. please let this be about ralsei's wiki page. thanks
