What were your thoughts on THAT scene from Chapter 4's weird route pre-update?

Deltarune Discussion
1

tw: some sensitive content though not brutal

but i'm referring to the original Noelle and Kris scene in Chapter 4's weird route, before it changed

this isn't a discussion about the morality of the scene or what the scene was about, just what you thought of the scene and your reaction when you saw it pre-update

to me, my entire life i've known about the whole deflowering=losing innocence thing since i was a child. i feel like that's generally well-known, and i still do feel like what Toby meant, saying the deflowering was losing innocence, though not sexually, just growing up and realizing you're not a kid and you're dealing with real shit. its just, had the game not updated to a cracked screen, it feels like that's exactly what Toby meant. thankfully it was changed, that would be a monstrous thing for Kris (or i guess technically us, the SOUL) to do, but i was shell-shocked and genuinely terrified (though also partially due to the absurd nature of the scene even beforehand)

thankfully Toby changed that though, cleared everything up. saw in a YouTube comment that Toby doesn't seem like the person to succumb to criticism, and he likely changed it to make sure it isn't implied sexual abuse happened, and i believe that, it is clearly just Kris equipping the Thorn Ring onto Noelle.

2

Another way a saw it (cause i didnt know about deflowering) was the rose of the ThornRing, destroying anything redeemable or good about it, and ripping it away, leaving only the thorns which exist to hurt.

3

Would you believe I somehow didn’t even notice it was supposed to be a rose and thought it was the SOUL at a first glance?

I’m actually under the impression the rose animation wasn’t even made by Toby and was never supposed to be in there. Spamton Sweepstakes’ Silence Update had it as the red pixel, and that’s what it was ultimately changed into.

So I ended up not having an interpretation of the scene at all, except the obvious that Kris forced the ring onto Noelle and that it pierced into her, That remains my interpretation of the scene. Nothing more than that. Besides it potentially being the point of no return because of ominous being replaced with its more complete version, ominous_worse. Though based on interpretations of the Spamton Sweepstakes and the sound effects being the main divergence point of the underlying routes, it’s probablg not the point of no return since you still need go do something in Chapter 5 to finish the route. (I plan on exploring the Spamton Sweepstakes and reinterpreting based on what we actually got in the new chapters the moment the spoiler semi-embargo goes away) I do believe the consequences for Chapter 4’s weird route is more persistent and worse than Chapter 2’s, but it is possible to branch off again. Which begs the question:Why THIS scene? Why does the game consider THIS scene worse than Snowgraving Berdly, if it’s NOT the final act of the rote?

4

all this makes me more and more excited for the fifth chapter, can't wait to see how weird route continues and where it could possibly go from here

5

Probably because Noelle will be more scarred from that scene then Berdly will from being Snowgraved, as we revealed our existence to her and that we can read her thoughts, as well as possibly began growing another SOUL inside her.

6

Hehe

7

After it was changed to a red pixel my take was that the red was blood. Although I can see it being a small piece of the soul too… and there is SOMETHING going on to explain why we see a whole screen of red if we choose to think about Noelle after that. (Say no to thinking about Susie, and you get the chance to think about Noelle or the Knight).

8

I believe that this scene was the last point you can back out of the Weird Route in, after this it seems clearly locked in. I believe that aborting the Weird Route here will cause everything to more or less go back to normal, including Berdly waking up in some way. If you didn't abort it here, things are most likely going to get even more serious.

9

I thought so too at first, but based on the way the /chapter5 page works, there is another point of divergence. Although I suppose the idea that yes, there’s another divergence point, but this is the first time the consequences of the Weird Route will never fully go away can make sense. Berdly’s NOT dead in Chapter 4 despite Snowgrave being Fatal, so it does make sense that this will be reversed… while THIS scene won’t. And whether you do the Chapter 5 Weird Route or not could just determines if things will end really bad or even worse somehow. Again, more on that later (for now, basic argument is clicking on the chapter numbers there plays a sound effect of the moment the divergence happens, and white numbers are Weird Routes, black numbers something else. 2 plays the Snowgrave spell, 3 plays the Shadow Mantle sound, 4 shows the red pixel from THAT scene, and 5 has a segment of the Hometown song, It’s white so it has a Weird Route.)

10

It’s the space heater.

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11

I think you're on to something. One of the variables controlling that cutscene is called blood_drip.

12

What was the difference between the pre-update and post-update?

13
  1. Rose that appeared, then fell apart
  2. A single red pixel moving slightly
  3. Red cracks over the whole screen

Uh yeah that’s the order of the updates

14

Sounds like I’ve only seen the third.

15

Yeah, it was changed due to people misinterpreting the first one, and the second one was a temporary fix

16

Honestly, the scene and its changes were pretty funny to watch play out, not in-game, but seeing it get misinterpreted so wrongly. Toby/Temmie definitely didn't know what they were doing there, and it was really funny seeing them rush to fix it. I imagine the Benny Hill theme played as soon as they realized how bad they messed up.

As far as I know, the patch notes and sword route are the only time that the weird route was even hinted at, so that's how serious it was.

Not to say I find the interpretation funny, but to say it was funny seeing how much of a stir it caused.

17

SOUL inside her.

Maybe... a friend inside her (joking)

18

How easy would it be to downgrade the version via Steam and check out the older cutscenes?

19

I thought it was supposed to be because it was a thorn ring being equipped, and it was a rose with thorns when I initially saw it, did not know that's how people interpreted it until I read somewhere

20

Yes, that’s how it was meant to be interpreted. But this fandom is weird.