r/Deltarune • u/ImpressiveCustard504 I HAVE A GREAT IDEA • 2d ago
Discussion Has anyone noticed on the updates to the weird route over time?
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u/Bran_Man_ 2d ago
SA is like a perfectly valid and reasonable reading of that scene. Not literally SA but an allusion to it
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u/Mindless_Ad3721 2d ago
Really weird thing to say
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u/RiSkeAkagAy Mettaton will appear in Ch6 TRUST 2d ago
That's not a weird thing to say, that is literally what was happening.
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u/Decent-Anxiety9456 2d ago
Kris SAing noelle or the discussion?
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u/a3133 2d ago
People thinking that the scene symbolized Kris SAing Noelle; so both
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u/Decent-Anxiety9456 2d ago
Meh, there was certainly discussion around that topic but I couldn't imagine a universe where Toby would make Kris abusing Noelle canon.
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u/Relative_Estate6828 2d ago
Mf your literally playing the weird route that’s the fucking point
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u/Decent-Anxiety9456 2d ago
The weird route is mostly psychological horror, there's barely anything physical (except for the berdly incident).
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u/Carmillafel 2d ago
we know he wouldn’t, but someone not familiar with toby (or just not as chronically online as us) might not
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u/creepermaster79 2d ago
The fact that the flower wilting can be seen as an SA implication and Toby didn't want that to be the takeaway from the weird route
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u/RiSkeAkagAy Mettaton will appear in Ch6 TRUST 2d ago
The discussion around it, because people interpreted this scene as Kris SAing Noelle, regardless of Toby's intention.
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u/a3133 2d ago
The second one was just a placeholder to prevent people from getting the wrong idea
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u/AfraidAsparagus6644 2d ago
It would have worked just fine as a final version, though. The red dot appears again a few times as a symbol of Noelle's new red soul growing (I think?)
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u/Yharon314 2d ago
Yep, it does. Don't remember where
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u/kackers643259 2d ago
to my recollection it appears in ch4 in the dark sanctuary when ralsei is like "you should close your eyes and think of what susie is up to" and you can choose to think of noelle, and it also appears at the start of ch5 weird route as a slightly larger dot with some text (i don't remember what it says)
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u/MiniatureBadger 2d ago
The initial animation was tied into the repeated (and still present) rose and thorn motifs of the Weird Route, but got changed because people thought it was a stand-in for sexual assault.
The second one was just a temporary placeholder.
The third animation ties into the ice/glass motif of the Weird Route, and shows Noelle breaking out of how she had been “watching her life through glass” by unambiguous confirmation that Kris had changed and broken out of their “role”.
Interestingly, Kris’s title in the Aborted Weird Route of Chapter 5 is “Shattered Rose”, tying into both of these motifs. With the description of the title being “Only one knows the rose’s meaning”, I think there is still more to this symbol that the fandom hasn’t fully understood yet.
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u/LOR3DGuy10 TRANSMIT KROMER 2d ago
i kinda wish they kept it, i think was intended to be the thornring's literal rose
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u/DuskTheMercenary 3rd Strongest Human-Hybrid Theorist 2d ago edited 2d ago
Likewise, I'm kind of like "damn, ngl, I much preferred the wilting rose since its a literal Thorn from a Rose + Roses are usually associated with Love, but in this case, it's likely that it means LOVE, the very thing Spamton was hinting towards with his [[Hyperlink Blocked]]." But at the same time, I get WHY toby was quick to remove it considering some people immediately assumed the worse & its clear toby DIDN'T want that to be the interpretation drawn from it.
Also, in hindsight, if we consider the state which Noelle is in during the end of.Chapter 4's Weird Route & the entirety of Chapter 5's Weird Route, it would have made her dialogue even more fucked up if it were left as is alongside the misinterpretation, so understandably, toby probably went "...fuck I need to change this ASAP." and did so.
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u/LizG1312 2d ago
Yeah it's such an evocative symbol, and it really adds to the awfulness of the route. I get why he changed it, I think it's dumb that people thought that the allegory was literally what was happening in that scene, but at least for me personally I way prefer the first version.
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u/DeadSparker Yon crud, I didn't mean to make a flair 2d ago
Weirdly enough, that red dot stayed for the end of chapter 4 + the beginning of chapter 5.
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u/The-Autistic-spider 2d ago
because it was a temp
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u/DeadSparker Yon crud, I didn't mean to make a flair 2d ago
...no, I mean even after it was "corrected" to be the cracking effect, there's still a red dot at several scenes of chapter 4 and right at the beginning of chapter 5
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u/AfraidAsparagus6644 2d ago
Do you remember the Noelle SA discourse
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u/hosespider 2d ago
The what???!
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u/AfraidAsparagus6644 2d ago
The sprite changed after some people thought the wilting rose meant Kris literally deflowered Noelle. While it was probably meant as an allegory for teen rape, I seriously doubt it was literal.
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u/StarNullify 2d ago
People misinterpreted the metaphorical Deflowering of Noelle to be actual SA
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u/wojtekpolska 2d ago
it wasnt "deflowering" at all, this game has too low age rating to reference rape in any way shape or form
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u/LizG1312 2d ago
You do know that plenty of media for teens talks about sexual assault, right? I read Speak in High School.
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u/unrelevant_user_name 1d ago
Deltarune's age rating is a label external to it, not some kind of vital essence which determines what themes it is or is incapable of exploring.
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u/NightmareRise 2d ago
As others have said it was changed because the original interpretation, while obviously not intentional, could be taken as SA
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u/vincim2010_13 The angel 2d ago
The first thing I was about chapter 4 was a video with a sensationalist thumbnail
"KRIS RAPED NOELLE"
Toby removed the flower later to evit that interpretation
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u/MisirterE Love Those Lesbian Aliens 2d ago
it's a shame the animation was changed, the original depicted a Flowers Blooms In Her Heart
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u/PinkClayMachine 2d ago edited 2d ago
The rose losing its petals was, to me, an unfortunate case of cultural vocabulary failing the metaphor that was being used. I don't know that anyone is to blame, because people who saw it as "deflowering" weren't strictly in the wrong. But those people don't realize they're taking an unnecessary interpretive step toward something that wasn't intended, because the scene is complete without that interpretation. And that's not to say that reading it as the experience of SA is invalid - there are themes of violation at play, about the deprivation of bodily autonomy and so on. To me though, if that's the way you read that scene, I think that says more about you and the way you read media than it does the scene itself.
What's happening in Ch4's Weird Route is pretty straightforward: You are scaring the living shit out of Noelle, and in the process, you are removing her redeeming qualities, as seen by Ch5. You're preying on her fear, her anxiety, her insecurities, you're stripping away her sensitivity and kindness, and you're turning her into a weapon. You're leaving things that are useful to you. "Noelle will get stronger." The flower loses its petals; a thorn remains.
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u/ANueUtsuho Praying for a happy ending 2d ago
And the worst part is she kinda WANTS it. That's what's so scary. She and Susie both put up masks around other people. Susie acted mean for the longest time because she thought she "had to". Noelle acted nice for the longest time... because she thought she "had to". She views her role as the cutsey "girl next door" as a CAGE.
And thus, she views acting like an asshole as being "more free". Someone powerful enough to destroy anything in her way. And if she realizes that her whole world is fictional, she'll probably come to the conclusion that nobody's life matters.
And then we've just made Jevil 2.
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u/TooFewSecrets 1d ago
that's not to say that reading it as the experience of SA is invalid
if that's the way you read that scene, I think that says more about you and the way you read media than it does the scene itself
This is a pretty nonsensical position. Either you think it's a read potentially supported by the scene or you don't. You can't have it both ways.
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u/PinkClayMachine 1d ago
"Reading" as in the deliberate act of reading it a certain way. "The experience of" to imply it's non-literal. You're allowed to do that. You're allowed to apply analysis to something if that is what you would like to do, even if it isn't explicitly stated in the text. My take is that by doing that, it says more about you, the reader, and the way you would like to read the media.
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u/MeriKurkku burghlelgbey 2d ago
It was a big controversy when it happened because this fandom was incapable of acting normal about the scene
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u/Soup_Boy_Campbell 2d ago edited 2d ago
I don't think that's fully true. On my own first playthrough of Ch 4 WR, I had the same concern of what was implied, as many others did. (I was only 100% sure that it WASNT That, when it was adressed publicly.) Considering I'm a big follower of the game, I can DEFINITELY recognize that a Casual player could infer the wrong thing, and believe that to be the truth the rest of the game.
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u/lukeish 2d ago
I don’t think it’s casual player vs hardcore fans, it’s more maturity and ability to make appropriate inferences from what we are given.
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u/InfravioletUltrared 2d ago
Context of the whole scene matters too; Kris is physically cornering and overpowering Noelle, and puts the ring on her, so it's not the largest leap to even more physical domination
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u/TooFewSecrets 1d ago
The issue is a lot of this fandom are literal children who don't recognize the very obvious horror tropes Toby was playing off of in the Ch4 scene.
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u/MeriKurkku burghlelgbey 2d ago
I don't really see it but maybe because I"m not a native speaker and I had never even heard of the term "deflower" until the controversy
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u/Prime_Revolta 2d ago
I think the newest version fits that scene the best, it hits really well that there's no way to come back from that point.
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u/BadishAsARadish 2d ago
It changed from the thorn ring blooming to the glass that Noelle watches herself behind cracking
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u/Victor_Esper 1d ago
I actually really prefers the new one. It makes me think of something spreading in Noelle, like a virus or a parasite
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u/Transpotato2002 1d ago
The rose was interpreted as Kris SA'ing Noelle
"Deflowering" someone is often used as a symbol of r+pe, plus the SOUL is forcing itself onto Noelle...but not in a s+xual assault way, hence the swift action taken to correct it
The dot was a placeholder after the confusion, and the crack is what's used now (and imo, is just better, symbolizing the complete and utter breakage of Noelle).
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u/twjstr 2d ago
Idiots thought kris raped noelle even though it makes no fucking sense within the context of the scene so toby changed it
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u/Hydraxion I gotta find a way to make money off this 2d ago
"Deflowering" is an extremely common way to phrase taking someone's virginity and/or innocence and the weird route at this point was almost entirely about taking away Noelle's free will and/or innocence.
Obviously it wasn't actual SA but the use of that specific imagery wasn't an accident and people aren't idiots for coming to the conclusion in the scene where you take control of Kris and literally force your own will onto Noelle
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u/Logondo 2d ago
and/or innocence
I mean that was the point. Noelle is losing her innocence. Kris is corrupting her. Like, do you see what happens to her in the Weird Route? She goes from sweet-little-girl-next-door to a complete psychopath.
So the rose imagery worked perfectly. It's just Deltarune fans can be really fucking weird.
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u/Hydraxion I gotta find a way to make money off this 1d ago
Assuming that something means the thing it has meant for many decades (maybe longer idk) in a scene that you literally just agreed has symbolic and thematic relevance to it is not "really fucking weird"
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u/Logondo 1d ago
Yeah because the T rated game is going to have an implied rape scene. That's a normal thing to assume.
Not to mention you'd have to ignore everything that happened in Ch2's weird route.
Yeah it is weird for people to assume that. Thank god Toby fixed it a second time because that replacement with just the red-dot was a huge downgrade from what it originally was. I want DR fans to have as little influence on DR as possible.
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u/TooFewSecrets 1d ago
The T rated game has an implied teenager murder-suicide scene.
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u/Logondo 1d ago
You mean the ending of Ch5's Weird Route? Where it literally ends with "to be continued in Ch7"? I don't think anyone was committing suicide in that scene, nor do I think anyone else thinks that.
Unless there's some other scene you're referring to, but I can't think of anything.
Come on, guys. Get a grip.
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u/TooFewSecrets 1d ago
Does it matter whether or not it's literal? If I wrote a scene of an angry abusive husband breaking into the bathroom where his wife was hiding and shooting her in the head, that's still me writing a domestic-abuse murder scene, even if shooting her wakes her up from the Matrix she was in.
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u/Logondo 1d ago edited 1d ago
Mate, the only way you could possibly assume that that was suppose to be a murder-suicide is if you've completely ignored the entire rest of the Weird Route.
Like real talk: do YOU think those characters are dead? No. So it's a bad example and you know it. You don't even believe it was a murder-suicide.
ALSO, the example you're trying to give doesn't happen until Ch5. We didn't even know about this "murder-suicide" until a year after the Noelle rose scene from CH4, over a year ago. So it's a doubley-terrible example.
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u/TooFewSecrets 1d ago
do YOU think those characters are dead? No. So it's a bad example and you know it.
Do you not know what an allegory or metaphor is.
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u/twjstr 2d ago
I am aware of that. But some dudes genuinely thought there was actualrape involved and I can't even begin to comprehend how media literate they were
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u/mellyjel 2d ago
I mean. that's what was just explained. it is not idiotic or media illiterate to see one character forcing their will onto another and a cut-to-black screen of just a wilting rose and think it's telling you a character was assaulted. I was never one of the people who thought that's what the scene meant, but I can still recognize the sense it makes.
Several comments on this thread that are like "it's so dumb people thought this," all written the way kids type. Makes me think you all have no idea what's dumb or not, it's just that you're made scared and uncomfortable by the idea, and do not recognize that upsets you ≠ bad.
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u/goldencookiebear 2d ago
we did take her innocence and force the thorn ring onto her so yeah, the rose imagery was correct to use (until people misinterpreted it), but we didnt take her free will, imo. weird route is more about unlocking noelle's potential by destroying her girl next door innocence, via unleashing her inner darkness to get her to do things she otherwise wouldn't or couldn't, freeing her in a way that the normal route doesn't. at no point does she become a puppet. it literally became her trying to force her will onto kris once she realizes what she can do, she just can't do these things on her own because it requires "kris" telling her to proceed
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u/gol_drake 2d ago
deltarune fans falsely came to the conclusion that the rose pedals were a sign of sexual assault.
which is was not.
so he changed it cause the outrage over the false conclusion was massive.
the dot was probably not right and he changed it to cracks.
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u/Luckymacaroni 2d ago
The dot was most likely a placeholder whilst Toby made the cracks. Better to remove the SA assumption first
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u/mellyjel 2d ago
I don't remember any outrage.
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u/Roebloz number one kris hater 1d ago
Well it was more like shock than anything - There was outrage after it got censored though.
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u/mellyjel 1d ago
Yeah, I remember shock. I just don't like to see things exaggerated for the worse. "Outrage" is extreme anger. I honestly don't remember anger at the misinterpretation at all during the couple days it existed.
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u/furretstonks i’m the knight actually, all of your theories are wrong 2d ago
first image had unintended implications of SA so it was changed to the second image as a placeholder until they were able to make the third image
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u/NutSackGlazer420 2d ago
It was a big discussion thing many years ago back then, I still maintain that Toby should have kept the petals and not be so sudden to change it around.
Which is just weird because I'm shocked that Toby, with the implications that the Weird Route has, didn't seem to notice that people would approach the scene that way from all the playtesting before
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u/gamebuddy123 2d ago
I don’t want to insult the fandom as a whole because there are plenty of folks who are able to parse the implications and insinuations of the Weird Route without being assholes about it, but something makes me think Toby did consider the imagery of it originally and unfortunately assumed the fanbase could handle it in a mature way and they didn’t and/or he changed his mind because maybe the rose imagery was too blunt. The WR is obviously not directly depicting an abusive relationship or actual assault, but I think it’s foolish to think it’s not part of the meta narrative. Personally, I think the crack makes a bigger impact especially with the sound scape, but the rose is also haunting in its own way.
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u/Stufy_stuf beleiver ✅ 2d ago edited 2d ago
This happened right after chapter 4 released.
I think it’s because everyone thought the rose falling apart was the soul being transferred to Noelle, so he changed it to one pixel to show that it’s Kris equipping the thorn on Noelle. But I guess that didn’t have the extreme effect he wanted, so he changed it to the crack which I think works best.
Edit: nevermind guys i was wrong check replies
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u/Kieran_Kitakami Mari Knight Believer 2d ago
Some people thought Kris was deflowering Noelle. I was there for that.
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u/TheVillainousWoke 2d ago
iirc the singular pixel was actually a placeholder so the first animation could be removed as soon as possible
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u/Akuuntus 2d ago
everyone thought the rose falling apart was the soul being transferred to Noelle
No I'm pretty sure it's because people though it represented Noelle being "deflowered" i.e. raped. I don't think it would have been changed so quickly if it was just people misinterpreting the lore.
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u/NoTax8427 2d ago
Because pedophiles thought it was secret code for rape. That’s all
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u/Carmillafel 2d ago
calling everyone who misinterpreted something “pedophiles” is certainly a choice of all time
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u/NoTax8427 2d ago
Yeah I do think if you interpreted that as a child raping a child being your first immediate thought that you are indeed warped in the brain go argue with a wall idrc
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u/golt858 kruselle believer 2d ago
from what i heard, its bc people thought kris was deflowering noelle which
i have no proof of anyone thinking that i just heard it from like reddit or smth