Prepare for a wall of text. (Spoilers for all of chapter 5) So after fully finishing chapter 5 my attitude to a certain character has completely shifted, and that character is our favorite cage with human soul and parts. Kris just had and has it the worst bro. So let's start from the beginning: first of all, them obviously being not only from a different family than the Dreemurs, but from and entirely different species as well. Looking, growing and just overall being absolutely nothing like the people you're supposed to spend time with the most can't be easy to just roll with. Being the only human in town, and still be treated and talked about differently despite most monsters not looking like each other at all is also really shitty. It is also implied that Kris had some tendencies to violent or unpredictable behaviour in their childhood, to the point where they went to (art) therapy, which is something already really sad and serious and nothing to joke about. (Also I really hope that this part of Kris' character gets explored in ch. 6 please Toby I need this (my cage is kinda soulless)) And then comes the incident. The Dessappearence, to be more exact. Dess was someone that Kris clearly admired in the past (okay so I'm walking on thin ice here, I'm writing all of this without relying on the game itself so if some piece of info form this post got proven wrong in the game, I'd like to get some feedback), and seeing the person you had at least some fond memories of must be just heartbreaking. That definitely left Kris emotionally scarred, that's for sure. And when you account for the possible fact that Kris may be even responsible in some way for what happened to her, this... God, it becomes just too much for a teenager to handle. (Source: the caller possibly guilt tripping Kris into executing the plan). So, their childhood background is already really sad, even if it doesn't seem so the first time around. And for those that say "oh Susie's backstory and current situation is much more sad", I personally don't think so. You see, in the plot of the game itself, she's been doing more than fine. Not only did she get like 3 actual friends that all feel something very strong for her, she has even got a girlfriend, and that's not counting the five million darkners from castle town. She is having the adventure of a lifetime right now, even if stakes are more serious. So far, everything has been smooth for her. But not for Kris. Even if Susie had a very shitty home life, in my opinion, never experiencing good, warm, safe life hurts way less than having it torn apart, broken off in such a sad way after having a taste of it. But anyway, back to the human. Their current situation: the parents are divorced, one doesn't want to hear just a slightest mention of the other one and the other one is miserably trying to win her over. The first parent is shamelessly getting drunk with the convenience store guy while the other one obsesses over something 99% of the town believes to be nonsense and also being on the rock bottom financially, getting seemingly temporary support from a woman who will clearly dump him the second it gets convenient for her. The brother escaped to the "college", seemingly trying to repress the memories of what happened and kinda just leaving Kris to deal with life alone. Yeah, bad stuff. The family's... fighting again torn apart. And I haven't even gotten to the deal with the Knight and Carol. As I've already said, Kris seemingly gets guilt tripped into helping those two, assuming the caller is either of them. This includes bearing constant physical discomfort, for example being without the SOUL all night, which clearly didn't have the best effect on them. Creating a Dark World to get your mother seemingly kidnapped by a shadow creature is just crazy willingness to proceed with the plan. Must feel horrible for our poor Kris. And if that wasn't enough, how about someone else doing 95% of your actions not by your will? What if Kris doesn't want to flush the toilet a 100 times? What if Kris doesn't want to replay the same guitar minigame for a 100 times? What if Kris doesn't want to sit and listen to their two best friends getting closer to each other and farther from them? Have you considered that? Probably not. Me neither! We aren't supposed to care for our seemingly temporary vessel's feelings! See, that's the beauty of Kris' character. They never had it going right, going how they want it to. Never. The relationship situation isn't the best either. So Kris genuinely loves Susie right? The whole "stop looking at me like you want me to shove you into the locker again" thing may be played for laughs, but it's not the only time where Kris shows that they want Susie. And the whole chapter 5 they have to watch her yap about that deer, that deer who they also seemingly have undisclosed feeling for, con-stant-ly. Susie has also interrupted like 3 semi-romantical moments between Kris and someone else. Even if the Mew-Mew date is just played for laughs, her literally cutting Berdly off as soon as he's done with his speech feels pretty rude. Overall despite clearly liking the doe she still acted so weirdly... possesive of Kris? Must be pretty lame for them, right? I wouldn't be surprised if ch. 6 features Kris trying to win Susie over from Noelle as a desperate last resort, given that she'll likely be a huge part of it. And in the end of the chapter, after Kris' dad gets kidnapped to the shelter by the way, Susie just... doesn't react that much to it compared to Undyne's kidnapping. Then she was like "Okay so a person got kidnapped into the bunker so we need to get the codes" and now she's like "Okay Kris so one of the people closest to you got sent into god knows what but you know shit happens we'll get him out of there. Now walk me to school so I can show you that I'm officially homeless now. And yeah also we need to bring my girlfriend here." At least she shouldn't have made the whole "we need someone strong and close to the shelter codes" thing, because it's clear as day why she wants to bring Noelle specifically. I personally felt really sorry for Kris seeing them walking away clearly emotionally exhausted and just clearly sad. And then comes the weird route. Now this, this is just peak unfairness to Kris. They are genuinely stuck between a curious entity with powers to directly influence the world around them who generally does these pretty messed up stuff for the sake of fun and curiosity, and a yandere deer girl who is tired of living and now liking Kris for the sole reason that they've "changed". But Kris didn't change. And for that reason WR Noelle might dump them in whatever place they end up in ch. 7 side b. Very curious how she will react when she'll finally learn the truth about the SOUL. So yeah, in the normal route it look pretty bad for them, but in the weird route Kris watched their childhood best friend get manipulated into doing bad things by an entity they're powerless to stop, and then get dragged into local Hell by the aforementioned girl. Really, really sad situation we got here. And that's not even going into the "cage with human soul and parts" side of their character. I actually saw a pretty good video on this somewhere on youtube, search it up if you want.
So anyway, that's Kris for you: someone whose life has been going wrong since the very beginning, someone who once had a taste of warmth and saftey and then gradually lost almost everything that mattered to them. Someone who now is supposed to be no more than a tool, an instrument, a vessel in the grander scheme of things from everyone's perspective: Carol's, the Knight's, the Prophecy's, Gaster's. And when they finally, finally found someone worth living for, she's fading away and pretends like everything is alright. Well, it is as they say,
Oh, what a life to live so caged, so paramount in infinitesimal ways
(actually peak cover, go listen to it NOW!). You just can't feel not sorry for our dear human. They went from being an annoying mischievous gremlin to the deepest and best written character in deltarune for me. I love them platonically now, not as much as the deer girl, but still more than sus and ralral.
(also they play piano beautifully)
