[Analysis] Deltarune - Actions Speak Louder Than Words

*These were originally meant to be simple notes which explains their structure, I just ended up writing so much it became more of a character analysis, so I decided to post it*

Both Kris and Susie understand and believe that actions speak louder than words. 

Susie is not swayed by any of Ralsei's attempts to get her to act more like a hero, instead she goes off to Lancer who shows he accepts and appreciates her style, thanking her for helping him be a better "bad guy" and incorporating what she taught him into his next appearence. 

Later, Susie is not able to be reasoned with by Lancer, instead, what snaps her out of her anger is the fact he starts to stand there and take it instead of hurting her. By seeing that his actions show he really means what he says, she ends up not having the heart to go through with it and gives up. 

Susie is swayed by these actions, not anyone's words, to decide to listen to Kris/The Player in battle. She has a change of heart and reconsiders it, which opens things up for her to become friends with Kris.

How this happens is of course, another action, not words.

Kris, whom the next chapter implies even heavier is restricted by being the player character and said player's control, wills themself to leap forward and protect Susie from King's attack. They're just that worried about her, and she sees this. 

King retaliates and knocks Kris to the ground, after which he picks them up and delivers a very important line: "Quiet people piss me off.", which is exactly what Susie said to them at the start. This line, from her, also relates to how she feels. She tells them "You think just because you don't say anything, I can't tell exactly what you're thinking?". Susie doesn't trust people's words, doesn't even trust their lack of words, and always assumes a malicious motivation and a negative opinion of her because that's just how it always ends up. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for her, others look down on her and don't give her a chance, so she gets mad and acts exactly as they see her, which inevitably leads back to negative opinions about her. Words end up not working on her, and she needs someone to show her they're giving her a chance. For Noelle, it was when she gave Susie a candy-cane pencil, which lead to Susie not bullying her like the others. She makes note of this in chapter 2, saying that this kindness was why she decided to "spare her".

Kris also showed it to her, and when they're rewarded with nothing but more violence and the exact same thing she said to them before, she realizes something important in that moment. She doesn't wanna be like King. King is hurting someone who went out of their way to protect her despite her own assumptions about what they thought of her. Kris defended her despite her treating them the same way others had treated her, by making assumptions about what they thought and what they were like, without even giving them a chance... 

So now it's her turn to let her actions speak, her turn to defend them in kind. She says the very, very important line, one I didn't really realize was this important until I sat down and wrote this:

"Get away. From my. Friend."

From here on it's actions that define their relationship more than words; after all, Kris doesn't talk much and we can't hear it even when they do. Kris does things like tease her by prentending to write down something she said, she drags them off to the Dark World entrance, she starts tossing them at enemies for one of the ACTs cuz you know they trust each other enough. In general they have a lot of team up ACTs that play off each other. You can come back to a patch of moss later and Kris will share it with Susie, which she clearly appreciates in her rude and rough tsundere way "I guess even you have your good points", she says. Kris tries to keep the others out of their dealings with Spamton. After that, Susie comes in and protects Kris again by attacking him with Rude Buster, and after the fight makes it clear she'd rather help out if they're gonna do stuff like this. That scene too, is actions. There's a lot of dialogue which informs the characters, but it's the actions that are important. Susie sees that Kris isn't doing so hot and stops everyone, being unwilling to move on until they seem to be doing better. She tries to liven things up with jokes, in one version of the scene, she says she's not gonna lend her jacket and if Kris and Ralsei make her cold she'll burn them for warmth. Kris thinks this is funny and smiles, and that's when she's ready to move on. What she says and what she's doing mean two different things, while what she says isn't serious it's still talking about pragmatically choosing to use her friends as kindling, but the underlying point of everything she's trying to do is cheer Kris up. The words mean something entirely different than what they say. This is part of her variation on the tsundere archetype, I believe. Many dislike calling Susie a tsundere but that's because the term has been tainted over time with plenty of low effort, 2 dimensional tsundere, in reality the archetype is fantastic starting place for a character and can sometimes lead to the best character in a story, case in point. And she definitely is!

Tsundere are definened by their words not meaning what they sound like they do, even the simple "It's not like I like you or anything, baka!" joke means "I'm too embaressed to admit I like you and am defending myself with denial and insults.". A good tsundere character is one for whom their actions have to speak louder than their words, because they're not good with them. What they do that shows they really do like their love interest and/or friends, is how they act, over how they speak.

Susie shows genuine concern for Berdly, someone she is very clearly annoyed by. When Queen gets in her robot, she doesn't back down. Susie helps Kris play the arcade game by lending them her strength and height. 

Kris has less opportunities but not none. A big one is sitting down with her by the lake if you let the controls idle. A nice little chill out for the two of them, which they both seem into. If you take Undyne's chocolates and try to eat them when Susie's with you, they'll offer to share them with Susie. Kris honors Susie's request not to go near the police station or into the dinner, since she's wanted for several counts of Comic Mischief and Catti, who doesn't like her, works at the dinner. 

Susie says "I guess if you're gonna make me" to hanging out with Kris, as if they or anyone could make her do anything, and as if she doesn't want to. Susie defends Kris again, from an honestly pretty minor insult from Snowdrake and Monster Kid. She walks up behind them and spooks em, then slams her foot into the door they were lookin at, saying "Somethin' pretty scary in there? Seems like you should worry about what's out here first.". She then doesn't make them talk about why the place they're at bothers them. 

Then, there's of course, Kris' actions at the end of Chapter 2. Are these actions motivated by that same coda? What exactly is Kris trying to say? Are these actions for her?

Only time will tell, but regardless, I believe something will need to be shown and not told in order to resolve this.