they look the same except Kris is appropriately older,
they have the same expression all the time,
same skin tone, same hair, same eye color,
they're both at least implied to be in their respective prophecies,
they both have the player soul and in the color red,
they both have a relation to knives and pianos,
and they even have the same adoptive parent,
how could they not be the same character?
I think Kris has a different name from Frisk because they have different parents who logically gave them a different name. Same reason for them to be dressed different.
What makes people say that monster kid in Undertale is the same character as monster kid in Deltarune living through different experiences, but deny the same being true about Frisk and Kris?
It's a heated topic. Some pieces of evidence can go either way, for now.
Kris also looks similar to Chara, particularly in flashback scenes where they wear the same sweater and always hide their face.
Chara may have also had a blank expression most of the time, except for when they used a "creepy smile".
Chara had a similar hairstyle and may have had red eyes. We don't know if Kris' eyes are always red or only sometimes. Also, we only see Frisk's eyes as red in a True Pacifist run after a Genocide run, where Chara barters for the SOUL.
Asriel and Chara also fit UT's prophecy, as they have seen the surface and set the monsters free (by destroying the barrier, or killing them.)
Chara had a red soul as per their coffin.
Frisk doesn't really have a knife thing. Chara does, based on the item in their shared room. In the genocide route they also sometimes use red text, and display red '9's.
Chara was also adopted by the Dreemurrs.
Furthermore, both Chara and Kris like chocolate and pie, they both have a very close relationship with Asriel, and both became involved in some sort of scheme - in UT where Chara tries to steal 6 human souls, and in DR where Kris is apparently colluding with Carol and potentially the Knight..
Also, we can't be sure Chara was the first human's objective name. People use it for the sake of ease, but Chara could just be a reference to the internal name, rather than what they were literally named in life. Toby may also not have wanted to reveal Kris' name yet.
Another point is that Frisk already got to be a protagonist and have their story. Chara didn't, so perhaps DELTARUNE is their turn to shine.
A-kay, if we ignore the obvious difference in skin tone, (and attitude, but only when faced directly), I suppose Chara is also a candidate for being Kris... if we want to word it like that.
I wasn't considering Chara because I don't really know what Chara is...?
Like, they're the first human to fall into the underground, but they're also a representation of a careless player? And also a demon maybe?? I find it reasonable to assume that if anything they are the same person as Frisk somehow.
Chara is, from a meta perspective, a personification of the stats menu and the satisfaction you get from numbers increasing. Not necessarily a careless player (if anything Flowey fits that role better) but they definitely lost what modicum of care they had after their death.
Now, I think Kris intentionally has some traits that align with both Frisk and Chara, but they are their own person with their own personality.
A lot of Chara's characterizations are subtle, locked behind the True Lab, or based on outside-the-game content such as the alarm clock dialogues or newsletter content
Much of what we know is based on the recordings of them and Asriel in True Lab, and what Asriel says in the epilogue. He characterizes them as being shy, a troublemaker, and being troubled themselves. They were only honest about their reason for climbing the mountain with him, so they were probably secretive.
A lot of people base their view of them on the Genocide Route, but that's like viewing Asriel based only on his actions as Flowey. Both are these characters at their worst and most violent. In reality, they're very nuanced, if you dig a little deeper.
Frisk sort of aligns with a lack of personality more than anything, as does Kris when under control of the player. Frisk's only uncontrolled sequence that I know of is when they speak directly to Asriel which doesn't tell much. I assumed that Frisk simply doesn't care as much because they didn't really have anything to aspire for, especially since they seemingly went and jumped into a mountain for fun.
It does seem apparent from the VHS tapes that Chara took enjoyment out of Asgore being poisoned, and gaslit Asriel into agreeing to their plan by telling him that big kids don't cry and asking if he'd doubt them. I don't mean to imply that they were totally heartless - in fact, it seems they did care for Asriel deep down and didn't even hold resentment towards him for the plan failing - but they were definitely never morally righteous.
Chara didn't necessarily enjoy it. They may have thought it was less serious than it really was due to being very young, or they might have laughed because they were uncomfortable and responded in a socially unacceptable way.
That's also not what gaslighting is. Manipulation yes, gaslighting no. They were being mean and pressuring him into something dangerous because they felt their plan was necessary, and maybe they genuinely didn't want him to be upset by it.
I also never claimed they were morally righteous. I said they were nuanced.
Sure. I always liked this interpretation so I'm not going to refute it.
Sorry, I'm not a manipulationologist, but you see my point.
I never said that you claimed that, but you did leave a bit of detail out that I thought was worth clarifying, since a lot of people do try to paint Chara in a certain "they were a completely well-meaning child who could do no harm" light with those same arguments.
Okay new theory:
What if Chara wrote the Weird Route
One of the biggest questions about the weird route to me is how it can be so specific. If Kris seems to share traits of Frisk and Chara at the same time, what if the weird route is Chara's Idea™? To see how far it can be taken if you did it all again, just as their role was in Undertale.
It's a reach, but the thought occured to me and I wanted to try it.
Cool. Using words correctly doesn't make me a "manipulationologist". I also never implied I thought that about Chara, you read them into my arguments. Try not to assume so much.
Maybe. It always did make me a bit curious how options like "proceed" could be amounted to the player's choice when we probably wouldn't have done it if we didn't get the hyper-specific prompts in the first place.
We just so happen to have a plano puzzle and Chara is the one connected with knives, for Frisk it’s just one random weapon we can choose to have or not have this isn’t evidence Frisk canonically has a connection with either of those
Also Monster Kid Deltarune acts much like Monster Kid Undertale. The signature “Yo”, the way they speak really casually and talk about how scared of Susie they are (versus them in Undertale saying if they were human they’d wet the bed every night)
Meanwhile when it comes to Kris… takes out soul and slams us and if we do the weird route they do that even more
And Frisk… never takes out the soul even once and happily kills everyone if we make them with zero resistance
I saw a Deltarune timeline theory somewhere stating that Toriel and Asgore had children later, which is why they and all the other Undertale characters exist together despite Asriel being alive and old, so I’ll be working under this assumption.
This would mean that Kris couldn’t be Chara because if Chara were to exist in this timeline, they would simply be dead (either of old age or something else).
Frisk, while hard to disprove their existence, would not be adopted by the Dreemurr family. While they have no confirmed family and they can choose to stay with Toriel, “I have places to go” could imply they already have a family. Even if they didn’t, why would their name be different?
Another thing: why would Toby Fox set up that Kris is their own character with their own motivations for it to be revealed that they were Frisk the whole time? That seems counterproductive. Frisk’s character in Undertale isn’t overly important (or very existent) so why would Deltarune be about that?
If you want my sister’s input, Kris can’t be Frisk because “They’re blue because they’re inbred.” (As far as we know Frisk is not inbred)
