i think the general discussion of ralsei being stuff like “is he Sus?? is he Secretly Evil?? is he asriel?? is kralsei actually Terrible and Bad???” instead of The Existential Dread of Being the Tutorial Guy1 is a pretty tragic waste
…but i do feel like that’s part of the point. like that video by dante’s integrity on youtube says, i do think ralsei is to some degree a scapegoat. someone who is meant to be the obvious target for suspicion. someone who is meant to take the hit for everything terrible secretly going on. and i think he knows it, and will willingly play the role he thinks he’s destined for if it means it’ll hold together the relationships of his friends. if it’ll hold your attention to the game. because those are the only things that matter to him. he tries so so hard to be as approachable and kind to the players as he can possibly be but, like a greek tragedy, despite doing everything he possibly can it ends up working against him, and so the instinct on first playthrough is very likely to be suspicious of him. doomed by the narrative, by circumstances completely out of his control, from the very start. and i think that’s the core tragedy of his character in the end. the existential dread of being the tutorial guy.
but if you’re the only one who understands your world the way you do, the only one who can manipulate it and tug at the strings the way you can, then maybe, in the end, if you play your cards right, you’re the only one that truly can resist. the only one that can seize fate, rather than accepting it. you just need to realize that you can, that you must do this. for both your friends and yourself. if the game was rigged from the start, then stacking the deck in your favor, teaching the other players how to count cards, is just evening the odds.
…so that’s why, okay?
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i would also like to cite the diagesis section of the mollystars device theory part 3 for making me think of this
