Characters/Deltarune Kris - TV Tropes

Deltarune Main Character IndexThe Three Heroes: Kris Dreemurr (The SOUL)Darkners: Card Kingdom | Cyber World (Spamton) | TV World | Dark SanctuariesLightners: The HolidaysOther CharactersKris DreemurrIt's only you.It's what they call "you".

"THE FIRST HERO. THE CAGE, WITH HUMAN SOUL AND PARTS!"— The prophecy, describing Kris and the SOUL

The main protagonist. Described by residents of their town as creepy, distant and quiet, Kris is the only human living in the monster town of Hometown with their adopted family, the Dreemurrs. They live a peaceful life until they fall into a Dark World with Susie, after which their life begins to turn upside-down........Only not really. In actuality, what the player initially believes to be "Kris" is actually the SOUL possessing their body, carrying out actions irrespective of the real Kris's own will. The further the adventure continues, it becomes clear that Kris's own involvement in the conflict is very different from what it initially seems, and that they are directly allied with the Roaring Knight for mysterious reasons. But despite these Conflicting Loyalties and possible loathing for the SOUL helping them save the world, they've also grown to care deeply for their friends. Their title in the Prophecy is that of the First Hero, the "cage" with "human parts".As the leader of the party, Kris specializes in using the ACT menu to command the other party members to do various actions. Starting with Chapter 2, Susie and Ralsei gain their own, less effective versions of ACTing, making them a bit less unique. They have higher stats than Ralsei, but lower than Susie.

For tropes applying to the SOUL, see here.All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned. open/close all folders #-F

• 11th-Hour Superpower:
  • Attempting to talk King down during the climax fight of Chapter 1 replaces Kris's ACTs with stronger versions of the party's normal magic thanks to the SOUL "shining its power" upon them. Ralsei's Dual Heal restores the whole party, Susie's Red Buster deals a huge chunk of damage, and Kris's Courage increases the whole party's defense (which is not so useful when you have access to more efficient abilities). Sans Kris' Courage, Dual Heal and Red Buster's ACTs also return during the climatic fight against Queen in Chapter 2, and the Titan in Chapter 4.
  • Before the fight with Spamton NEO in the Weird Route, Kris gains access to FriedPipis and X-Slash, which they otherwise have no access to in other battles.
  • In the tail end of the 3rd Sanctuary, the SOUL begins emanating light. This proves pivotal against the Titan and the Titan Spawn, whose attacks are weakened if they stay near the SOUL for too long, and Kris gains an ACT which destroys Titan Spawn and makes the Titan itself vulnerable to damage.
• Actually Pretty Funny: After the Spamton NEO fight in the Normal Route, if Kris says "yes" when Susie asks if they're alright, she later notes how Kris is smiling when she jokes about burning Kris and Ralsei to keep herself warm, calling them "idiot-scented candles".
• Adoption Angst: Kris clearly loves and is loved by their adopted family, but there are numerous implications that being raised in a family of goat monsters in a town with no other humans makes Kris think they shouldn't be a human. When they were younger they'd often ask when their horns would grow in, and took to wearing a Halloween devil horn headband in the meantime.
• Affectionate Nickname: Kris has many of those from various characters.
  • Catty and Bratty call them "Krissy."
  • Noelle and Rudy call them "Krismas."
  • Temmie calls them "Krisp."
  • Pizzapants calls them "little buddy."
  • Queen calls them "Kris Cross Applesauce."
• Age-Appropriate Angst: A lot of their emotionally cold behavior can be explained by the fact they're a bullied teenager whose parents have had an ugly divorce, and whose brother just left the family for college. While Kris has been mentioned as always being a bit of an oddball and a prankster, this emotional distance from people has only grown by the time the player first sees Kris in Chapter 1.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: In the Chapter 4 Weird Route, when the SOUL is eavesdropping on Kris and Noelle, the player has the chance to end the route and go back to normal by selecting "Please don't" when Noelle asks if she can keep talking. Noelle ends the conversation, but notes that Kris didn't actually speak, implying that they were actually pleading with the SOUL not to abuse her any further — which is even more noteworthy considering how ruthless and aggressive they are when dealing with it elsewhere.
• Allergic to Evil: During the fight against the Roaring Knight, the flavor text says that Kris feels lightheaded, their head is spinning and they feel a migraine coming.
• All for Nothing: At some point between Chapters 2 and 4, Kris runs off to try and mitigate the damage done on a Weird Route, reassuring Noelle that the experience was a dream, returning her watch if it was taken and promising to protect her... and then a player who wishes to keep playing the Weird Route can reverse all of their efforts and drive Noelle even further down the deep end than before. Kris takes it poorly.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Double subverted; despite being the only human in a town full of monsters, Kris is treated very normally by the community and is loved by their family. At the same time, they are hinted to have hang ups about this anyway and have a reputation for being "weird", acting out and isolating themselves in the past (before the SOUL was a factor). Chapter 1 establishes it well, with Kris struggling to form a group with other kids in the class for a project. Many of Kris's classmates understandably deny them because they already have partners, but it starts getting a little ridiculous when Temmie claims to be paired up with an egg and Noelle is the only person who wants to try making an exception by making a group of three with them and Berdly. Later on you can find Monster Kid and Snowy talking about Kris behind their back while Kris ''and'' Susie stand behind them.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: Blue in the Dark World, and the same off-yellow as Frisk in the Light World.
• Ambidextrous Sprite: While most of Kris’s sprites are consistent about their asymmetrical cape and single pauldron, the exception is their sideways climbing sprites from Chapter 4, which always have the pauldron towards and cloak away from the viewer.
• Ambiguous Gender Identity: In Chapter 1, they are an androgynous human teenager with Ambiguous Gender akin to their predecessors, Frisk and Chara. They are referred to by "they/them" once or twice in removed dialogue and other instances where it's unclear whether Susie is talking about Kris specifically or in plural. Averted Chapter 2 onward, with every single character, including Kris's own family and childhood friend, using only singular "they" when talking about Kris. It's also clear by the end of Chapter 1 (and explicitly shown in Chapter 4) that Kris has separate agency and individuality from their SOUL, the entity player is actually controlling, leaving no room for the idea of them being a self insert to project the players gender on.
• Ambiguously Bi: Kris can be put into Ship Tease situations in the game with certain male and female characters, but since almost all of these are the SOUL's choices and not Kris', it's hard to tell how they themself feel about any of it. For what it's worth, the only enemies Kris can flirt with are Hathies, Head Hathies and Watercoolers, who use gender neutral and female pronouns. Nothing is truly known regarding their canon preferences yet.
• Ambiguously Evil: A central point of intrigue around their character. When separated from the SOUL, Kris seems to become almost zombie-like and gains Red Eyes, Take Warning, on top of ominously brandishing their knife. However, Kris never actually directly harms anyone, instead performing actions that further their own agenda (slashing Toriel's tires to keep her at home and then opening a Dark Fountain in their living room while she and Susie sleep). While their implied reactions to the Weird Route and Spamton NEO indicate even a creepy kid like Kris is frightened by these darker events, Kris still knowingly endangered their own mother and the creation of any Dark Fountain potentially risks the apocalypse, along with any Lightner that happens across the Fountain. Chapter 3 and 4 subsequently all but confirm they're working with the Knight to some extent. Tenna on Chapter 3's Sword Route outright states he was following Kris' instructions, the battle against the Knight is all but stated to be either outright staged to an extent or following some preestablished rules, with Kris reducing damage they do to the Knight by half, the Knight not inflicting on Kris a status effect that prevents revival, and uniquely if the SOUL somehow avoids taking all damage, Kris coughs and the Knight tilts their head before letting itself be 'defeated' a couple turns later, all but stated to be some sort of signal between the two. In Chapter 4 they speak on the phone with an unknown caller (implied to be Carol Holiday) that is either the Knight or someone aiding the Knight, thereby endangering the town and their friends. The ending of Chapter 4 makes clear this is in part due to making a promise with the phone person, which implies that Kris is being coerced into doing these actions. There are also signs that Kris may be unhappy with their role in things, at least when it comes to deceiving Susie, leaving their motives and just how evil they are uncertain for the time being.
• Ambiguously Human: All the other characters believe Kris to be human and treat them as such, but some things the player sees cast doubt on Kris's exact nature. It's emphasized that the player controls the SOUL, not Kris, and the two are separate entities. If the SOUL does belong to Kris, there's an unexplained schism between them. If it's not Kris's SOUL, where did they get it, and where is their SOUL? Or did they never have one? There's also their Zombie Gait when separated from the SOUL, as well as their apparently natural red eyes. The full prophecy doesn't help their case, as it describes them as a "cage" with human parts.
• Ambiguous Syntax: Kris's initial description in the Dark World menu reads, "LV.1 Human: Body contains a human SOUL." While it's a known fact that humans' bodies contain SOULs, this is phrased in a very peculiar way that doesn't necessarily say that the SOUL actually belongs to Kris. This is even more eerie in the official Japanese version, in which the sentence is phrased more closely to, "LV.1 Human: A body containing a human SOUL", almost as if it's describing Kris as a container. The full prophecy in Chapter 4 explicitly calls Kris a container with a SOUL, and is notably ambiguous about whether the first hero is the SOUL, Kris, or both.
• And I Must Scream: Kris seems to be aware that they're being possessed by the player but is unable to stop their actions or tell anyone what's going on. In the Chapter 2 Weird Route, when Kris reunites with Susie and Ralsei, the former starts to comment that Kris looks upset. After defeating Spamton NEO on the Normal Route, if the player selects "No" when Susie asks if they're alright, Kris will start screaming. Regardless of the route, it's clear that the events you're forcing Kris through aren't doing wonders for their sanity, and they're unable to regain control of their body.
• And Show It to You:
  • During The Stinger of Chapter 1, Kris yanks their own SOUL — or, more accurately, your SOUL — out of their chest before throwing it into the birdcage. It's in the birdcage again during The Stinger of Chapter 4, having skipped over the part of ripping it out.
  • In Chapter 2's ending, Kris holds the SOUL out as the Dark Fountain they opened consumes the living room.
  • In Chapter 4, they rip the SOUL out again to stop it from reading the shelter code in Dess' guitar, then hold it up as they walk downstairs to trap it in the box room.
  • In a more comedic version of the trope, upon examining the bright red heart-shaped pillows upstairs with Noelle in the party, she'll mention how one of Kris's pranks was to use said pillows to pretend they were ripping their heart out before chasing her.
• Animal Motifs: Dogs. They wear a couple of different dog costumes throughout the game, they are compared to dogs and puppies at several points, and they even have a habit of howling. From a thematic standpoint, Kris's foremost quality is their loyalty, best seen when the first action they take independently of the player's input is to protect Susie from King's attack, and their affinity towards violence increases if they face someone truly capable of hurting their friends, such as the Knight if Susie and Ralsei are downed, or the SOUL if it torments Noelle through the Weird Route. A comedic side to this is Kris's tendency to stick anything and everything that looks even slightly edible or interesting into their mouth. Then there's Spamton comparing Kris's situation to his as a "puppet" and him trying to offer a chance for them to avoid being "A [Heart] ON A [Chain]" for the rest of their life, which evokes the idea of a dog chained to a post or constantly on a leash thanks to The Prophecy's expectations and the SOUL's possession of them, in addition to seemingly helping the ominous voice on the phone (who is, if not the Roaring Knight themselves, at least in leagues with them) out of some sort of obligation. This leads to temptations from sketchy characters like Ramb and Spamton offering chances at "freedom" from the railroaded story.
  • On rare occasions, one of Kris's stats in the POWER menu will be the Annoying Dog resting under the "magic" stat. It is simply labeled "Dog".
  • After the Fun Gang splits up near the midway point of Cyber City, Lancer (in Kris's inventory) responds by saying they'll solve the mystery fast, before suggesting Kris "be the un-talking dog".
  • In moments where they feel guilty or ashamed, they may bow their head down and turn pale, just as a dog does in fear of being punished. This can be seen when Susie asks them why they keep playing MANTLE backstage by themself or after both of them come back to the Dreemurr house and see a drunk dancing Toriel.
  • One thing that throws this off is their love of chocolate, which is infamously toxic to dogs, but as seen in dialogue choices where Kris seeks Black Comedy (e.g. choosing "Death" instead of Queen's "Bosom" in her early ultimatum has them say the former answer enthusiastically), it ends up being morbidly fitting.
  • The player can mess with Noelle by making Kris repeatedly step off the switch of an electric forcefield before she can cross over to the switch on the other side. She orders them to stay in their spot the same way you'd ask a pet to, even jokingly asking if they need a dog treat to listen. Saying "Nooooo" will cause them to howl the answer, while choosing "Yes" has them deliver it with sincerity.
  • The "Order" ACTs for Tasque Manager are about the Fun Gang acting like different kinds of dogs with brown ears to satisfy her need for Order. In Kris's case, they will crouch down like a puppy with paws up, as if meekly asking for something.
  • Trying to interact with the doors to Tenna's third game board (which isn't ready) has Susie suggest they try to look around for anything odd. Doing it a second time makes her jokingly scold Kris for scratching at it like a dog wanting to go outside, with Ralsei even asking "Aww, Kris wants walkies...?".
  • After trying to ask Susie if she's doing okay, she jokes that if they can't have Ralsei in the Light World to do their homework for the both of them, then she'll make Kris wear dog ears while doing her homework instead. She laughs when Kris responds by howling. At the start of Chapter 4 and after sealing the Fountain, Toriel remarks that Kris slept like a puppy.
  • The ending scene of Tenna's loss against the gang will flick through different channels represented by the minigames and show the heroes in corresponding costumes. The Susiezilla minigame gives Ralsei and Kris costumes to compliment Susie's kaiju onesie; Ralsei's will be a bright green bunny outfit while Kris gets a blue dog costume.
  • When exploring Noelle's house, Susie urges Kris to "make like a dog and find some clues". Besides being a Call-Back to Lancer's reference, Susie adds, "Don't make me explain which dogs find clues!".
  • Later leads to some humorous enmity with the Annoying Dog in the DogDollar room of Chapter 4, where they face off in a climbing race to the top of some pillars for either the treasure chest or a bone.
  • On their way home from their adventure in Chapter 4, Kris and Susie can stop by Onion-san's lake to sit and contemplate under the night sky. After some passing conversation, some levity is brought in when Susie smirks and tells Kris not to howl.
• Animation Bump: For the majority of the game, Kris's sprites are completely expressionless and very rigid... with a few notable exceptions. They gradually break free of these restrictions over the course of the game.
  • When Kris tears out the SOUL, their mouth is visibly agape from the pain, and after they do so in Chapter 1, they glance at the camera with a Slasher Smile. In general, their body language and animations are more varied when the SOUL is not possessing them.
  • Starting from Chapter 3, they're given a new sliding animation to better match Susie and Ralsei's sliding sprites.
  • In Chapter 4, after spending the entire game unable to play the piano properly (possibly due to the SOUL's influence over them, their own insecurities, or a combination of both), Susie's rather Susie-esque words of encouragement push them to play the piano of their own volition, triggering a cutscene showing their movements way smoother and far more passionate than anything they've ever demonstrated prior.
• Armor Is Useless: In the Dark World, Kris has gauntlets, greaves, and a breastplate. Yet their default Defense stat is no higher than Ralsei's or Susie's, who are wearing a robe and a sleeveless jacket, respectively.
• Armor-Piercing Response: The 2022 anniversary content reveals that, after a particularly cruel bout of bullying from Susie, Kris said something that made her immediately shut up and sprint out of the room, possibly while crying.
• Artificial Insolence: They have a fraught relationship with the SOUL through which the player controls them. Not only do they sometimes resist the player's commands, such as by keeping their mouth closed when forced to speak so the words are unintelligible, on more than one occasion Kris outright tears out the SOUL and acts independently while the player is stuck in Controllable Helplessness.
• Aside Glance: A curious detail is that Kris always turns downwards, looking at the "camera", whenever a cutscene finishes. Kris is well aware that this is how the SOUL perceives its surroundings, as they will also glare angrily to the screen while holding it in scenes like the ending of Chapter 1 or the incident at Noelle's house in Chapter 4.
• Audience Surrogate: Subverted to a greater degree than with Frisk. Kris at first appears to lack expression, dialogue, or personality, letting the player project feelings and decisions onto them. But it becomes increasingly clear that Kris's quiet and stoicism don't keep them from having feelings, opinions, and an agenda separate from or even opposed to what the player tries to express through Kris.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Aside from being able to CHECK enemies, it's implied that Kris was able to find Susie while she was trapped fighting the Sound of Justice in the dark by tracking them based on the SOUL's location.
• Badass Normal: Kris lacks any magic their non-human peers possess (and it's unknown if Deltarune monsters are vulnerable to human Killing Intent because Kris won't act lethally violent), yet Kris can fight alongside them on equal footing through skilled swordplay, speed, and more flexible ACTs.
• Bad Liar: After the church service is over in Chapter 4, Kris and Susie quickly discard their church clothes. Upon going back home, Toriel will ask what happened to them, and Kris' dialogue options are "Susie ate the clothes" or "I ate the clothes".
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • At the beginning of the game, you are presented with customization choices for your vessel. After completing that segment, you are told that your choices don't matter, so your character will be automatically set to default and named Kris.
  • In The Stinger of Chapter 1, Kris throws the SOUL in their birdcage and pulls out a knife, implying some malevolent intentions. Chapter 2 picks up right after that scene, and revealed that Kris used the knife to eat a whole butterscotch-cinnamon pie in what was implied (according to Toriel's reaction) to be an overdramatic manner. But The Stinger of Chapter 2 implies that Kris created the Dark Fountain in the computer lab with the knife, too. And even if they didn't, if Chapter 3's anything to go off of, the formation of the fountains could've been part of their plan.
• Batman Gambit: Kris shows an affinity for these, especially when operating in the Light World:
  • At the end of Chapter 2, Kris correctly predicted that Toriel would go to the car to get the sugar (somehow, Kris knew she left it in the car), that she would be protective enough to make Susie stay for the night after seeing the slashed tires, and that the cops would be slow enough to let everyone fall asleep, giving Kris enough time to make a new Dark Fountain in their house.
  • When they realize the SOUL is loose in Noelle's house in Chapter 4, they hide under Dess's bed and wait for the SOUL to approach the guitar, correctly predicting that, given the chance, the player would go directly towards it and give Kris a chance to catch it off-guard.
• Big Bad Friend: While the exact circumstances are unclear, they're implied to be working with the Roaring Knight despite their genuine friendship with their allies, especially Susie.
• Big Brother Worship: Events around Hometown suggest that Kris really looks up to their older brother Asriel, who is away at college. Just the taste of hot chocolate is enough to choke Kris up thinking about Asriel, and Toriel mentions that the two were practically inseparable when they were younger.
• Big Eater: Kris apparently ate an entire butterscotch-cinnamon pie that Toriel baked, and it's mentioned that she may routinely hide food from Kris. Father Alvin also mentions that Kris likes to drink more than their own share of the "sick fruit juice". Considering they're a growing teenager, this trope can be justified.
• Bizarre Taste in Food: Susie might eat everything, but Kris will eat anything.
  • Besides their Sweet Tooth, there's a Running Gag that Kris enjoys the taste of moss. In addition to eating it in their cell in Chapter 1, it comes up repeatedly in the following chapters.
  • Also in Chapter 2, if Noelle ends up joking that Kris might need a dog treat to stay put on the switch, answering "Yes" shocks her with their sheer honesty.
  • In the Weird Route of Chapter 2, one of Kris's ACTs in the Spamton NEO fight involves Kris eating "fried Pipis", which is apparently edible enough (for Kris anyways) to heal 120 HP. In Chapter 3, you can take Tenna's live Pipis if you don't have Spamton in your inventory. It heals Kris as much as a TV Dinner, but no one else will eat it at all, out of implied fear and disgust. Interestingly, it seems Kris will only eat the Pipis when no one is looking, which is reflected in the Pipis being unusable in battle where everyone can see and Susie and Ralsei's confusion as to where it went if Kris eats it.
  • If the conditions are met, you can get an Ancient Sweet in Chapter 4, which is implied to be a years old chocolate cone. It will restore 40 HP for the others, accompanied by various disgusted reactions, and 400 HP for Kris.
• Blade Enthusiast: Kris has a particular fondness for knives and can summon one to their hand to eat pies and tear Dark Fountains out from the ground, though they use swords in the Dark World instead.
  • The start of Chapter 2 has Toriel find out they ate all of her pie not because someone ate it and left behind a knife, but because the knife is specifically said by her to be Kris', implying that this child owns their own personal knife. On a more lighthearted note, their internet search history includes videos of gimmicky handmade knives, such as one made of jelly.
  • In Chapter 4 they'll produce a knife upon Susie asking if they have anything sharp on hand to open a Dark Fountain with. They'll then proceed to blush and look away like a delicate maiden when Susie questions if they just carry their own personal knife everywhere they go. Susie asking them this while they're both holding the knife together may also have something to do with the blushing.
• Blessed with Suck: While being under the influence of the SOUL has some bonuses, such as being able to seal Dark Fountains and read others' thoughts through dialogue boxes, Kris is repeatedly shown to despise it always controlling their body and only tolerates it for the few benefits it does have, most likely out of necessity.
• Blush Sticker: In a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, when Susie tells Noelle how Kris is surprisingly good at flirting while Kris is listening in the closet, when Kris looks over exactly one pixel on their face is pinker than the rest. Also happens after Susie touches their knife by the blade when, as she prepares to make a new Dark Fountain at the church, they show it to her.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Kris frequently sleeps through the beginning of class, but has the third-highest grades only behind Berdly and Noelle — which, considering that Berdly's grades are mostly from sponging off Noelle's work, means that Kris is just behind the class overachiever.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: One of the few unambiguous facets of Kris's character is how much they hate being puppeted by the SOUL through which the player controls their body. That said, while Kris clearly has their own preferences when making choices, they strangely are mostly tolerant of your possession of them. On the other hand, making Kris take heinous actions like those of the Weird Route makes them get very violent with you. Whatever route the player takes however, for some reason Kris either cannot or will not dispose of the SOUL even though they are clearly able to separate the SOUL from their body; it's not yet clear if this is because they truly need it to live, or if they need its power for their goals despite the grief. Notably, the SOUL is only ever separated from Kris for temporary periods of time, during which Kris displays a zombie-like gait and seems unwell. Even when Kris is absolutely furious with the SOUL, they will eventually stuff it back into their chest and let you take control again. Whatever it is they need the SOUL for, it is at least on some level related to a promise Kris is being pressured to fulfill, which seems to have something to do with the Dark Fountains and the Roaring Knight.
• Catchphrase: "Nowhere" frequently appears whenever Kris is prompted about where to go. Assuming that Kris is providing the dialogue choices, this is tied to them feeling surrounded due to their Conflicting Loyalty, or on the Weird Route, feeling helpless to stop the SOUL's malicious influence.
• Character Development:
  • In the Light World, Kris's body language and dialogue from NPCs hint at their lack of emotional investment towards others, and being really quiet. While in the Dark World, however, Kris changes into a heroic Knight in Shining Armor. This is best shown by them diving in front of Susie during the fight against King of their own volition, despite previously being mocked by Susie that they don't do or say anything. Over the course of the later chapters, they gradually begin to assert a little bit more control over their actions even while still under the player's control.
  • They slowly become more comfortable around Ralsei over time. In Chapters 1 and 2, Kris is kind of standoffish to Ralsei, which is a given since this is the first time they have ever met. Chapter 4 has Kris come around more on Ralsei, to the point of stopping the player from being pointlessly cruel to him, and even willfully hugging them with only minor prompting from the player. This is likely a result of Ralsei bearing his true feelings more honestly, and Kris seeing parallels between their situations.
• The Charmer: In Chapter 4, Susie remarks to Noelle that Kris is weirdly skilled in the art of flirting and does so with many random enemies to successfully win them over, even expressing that she ought to take lessons from them. While the SOUL is the one directing Kris to flirt and they are indicated to be rather moody and anti-social otherwise, the actual flirting itself is all Kris's action, meaning they can legitimately be quite charming if they choose to be.
• Child of Two Worlds: Kris is a human who was adopted by Asgore and Toriel Dreemurr as a very young child and was raised in a town otherwise populated entirely by monsters. Because of this, they identify more closely with monsterkind (to the point where looking at pictures of human families makes them uncomfortable), yet constantly feel some level of unwanted distance as a result of the marked differences between humans and monsters.
• The Chosen One: Presumably the chosen human hero needed to help prevent the Roaring. Specifically, it's their SOUL that's needed to seal the Dark Fountains. Similar to Susie, how true this is becomes ambiguous later on, as their SOUL is actually a seemingly foreign entity and the only description of their alleged role in the prophecy is as a "cage" made with human parts to host it, which could also describe the Discarded Vessel.
• Cloudcuckoolander: There are indications that Kris's natural behavior is weirder than anything the SOUL can puppet their body to do. Besides their fondness for practical jokes, a lot of the Lemony Narration seems to be stating Kris' unusual thoughts in a Comically Serious manner, and they genuinely enjoy eating moss off the ground. This is highlighted by a number of interactions with Susie in Chapter 4 that show they're Birds of a Feather, like pouring their drinks into each other's mouths or holding Susie by the ankles so she can devour an entire snack plate off the ground.
• The Comically Serious: If it'll pacify or allow them to spare foes, Kris will do anything from bowing their head, to doing ballerina twirls, to compliments or lectures. All while keeping their Hidden Eyes and deadpan expression. While Susie tries to play the Only Sane Man but fails repeatedly due to all the weirdness in the Dark World, Kris consistently just stands there, never reacting to much of anything at all.
• Composite Character: Kris is built almost entirely from traits from both Frisk and Chara: their role as the player-controlled character (sort of), expression, silent nature, Dark World color palette, and Light World skin color lean towards the former; while their Light World attire, relation to the Dreemurr family, glowing red eyes, and Ambiguously Evil character scream of the latter. What exactly this means in terms of the story has not been made clear.
• The Confidant: As they both get more familiar with Kris, Ralsei and especially Susie start to use them as their emotional sounding board. Susie even opens up about events in her past, and then wonders why she's telling Kris these things.
• Conflicting Loyalty: Chapter 4 makes it clear that Kris is working for a mysterious Caller, and both are implied to have some kind of ties to the Roaring Knight, who Susie and Ralsei are working to thwart. But on the other hand, it's made evident by then that they still care deeply about both of them. Chapter 4 sees Kris finally express care towards Ralsei by subverting the SOUL's attempts to bully him and hug him on their own accord, and The Stinger has them attempt to reach out to Susie when she's outside their house... only for the voice on their phone to remind them of their "promise". A hidden piece of narration also shows them using one of the Shadow Crystals in front of the final prophecy panels and seeing the ending playing out in full, and then shaking the crystal piece as if that'll change the outcome, dismayed that it doesn't, indicating they really want a solution that averts the prophecy without betraying this "promise".
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character:
  • While Frisk was a young child who was armed with whatever trinkets they could find, Kris is an older teenager who carries a legitimate weapon on their journey (a sword, at least in the Dark World).
  • Kris is much more outwardly moody-looking, with shadowed eyes compared to Frisk's blank (but still visible) "-_-" facial expression (though it may be implied that their eyes are open, just not visible).
  • In Undertale, learning that Frisk was a separate entity from the player with a true name different from the one the player chose for them was a major twist that was first revealed at the end of a True Pacifist run. In Deltarune, the player is told from the beginning that they and Kris are different entities, and the player's choice of name is immediately discarded in favor of Kris's true name.
  • While Frisk was designed to be easy to project onto (as a means of hiding their true relationship with the player), Kris is seemingly designed so they're difficult to project onto. Frisk is very visibly nondescript, but Kris's design has a lot more detail, from their Hidden Eyes to their body language in battle.
  • There are no concrete details to Frisk's past, but Asriel speculates they fled a terrible home life, and Frisk definitely has no interest in returning. By contrast, Kris grew up with a loving family and we often hear of their history with other townsfolk, with whom they've a reputation as a mischievious prankster.
  • Though Frisk finally asserts themself in the True Pacifist ending, they never resist the player's control, even if it damned them. They may not even be aware they're being controlled. Kris, however, actively knows that the SOUL is controlling them and appears to utterly resent the lack of agency, and takes chances to rebel against the player at several points. Certain times when the party vocalizes Kris's expressions (especially after witnessing Spamton NEO's fate and during the Weird Route when the player forces Kris to abuse Noelle and get her to put Berdly in a coma and kill several innocent Darkners) imply they view their situation as an And I Must Scream. This fits in with their ages difference: Frisk is so young, they really can't be expected to take care of themselves, while Kris is a teenager hungry for independence.
• Covert Pervert: Subtly implied by the save point in front of the statue that will become GIGA Queen when you first enter Queen's mansion. Looking up at the statue's long legs and high heels fills Kris with "a certain power" which the narrator opts not to elaborate on.
• Creepy Child: Their neighbors and fellow denizens outright proclaim this to their face when chatting them up, and not without reason; according to Catti, they used to study occultism. For reasons thus far unknown, Kris is more sociable and less creepy when in the player's control, though their weird side sometimes creeps through like how an interaction with Poppups have you "unconsciously" click on a popup about demon summoning lessons for teenagers.
• Crippling Overspecialization: In Chapter 1, they are noted under their profile as having the unique ability to ACT and do actions that can help SPARE enemies. This causes a problem in Chapter 2 when the heroes face Sweet Cap'n Cakes, who cannot be defeated violently due to the trio healing themselves and Kris's ACT doesn't last long enough due to directing only one party member at a time to dance. Eventually Susie wonders aloud why only Kris can ACT and learns her own version, the S-Action, then forces Ralsei to learn R-Action as well so they can choose to dance on their own.
• Cross Attack: Kris can use the "X-Slash" ACT in the Weird Route version of the Spamton NEO fight, which has them perform two critical slashes which form an X.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Ambiguously; the Chapter 4 egg room being art therapy at some kind of psychiatric center seems to imply that Kris had to have gone somewhere similar at some point in their life. There's also no explanation for what happened to their human birth parents, which could imply something dark, though they seem to be Happily Adopted.
• Dark Is Not Evil:
  • Played with. Kris looks and acts kind of creepy, and there are several moments showing that at least one of their eyes is glowing red under those bangs. However, the game actively messes around with the player's expectations of how malevolent they are. Most of the available evidence suggests they are, at worst, an antisocial loner with underdeveloped social skills, or possibly an unspecified disorder, with their endangering the world as an antagonist to us, the player, not being due to evilness. They get numerous Pet the Dog moments outside of the player's decisions, such as having beautifully played the piano for hospital patients in the past, their friendship with the town Extreme Doormat Noelle, and independently protecting Susie from one of King's attacks. Their behavior at the end of each chapter muddies the waters even further, being inconsistent with both the SOUL's influence and Kris's pre-established personality.
  • It's worth noting that the moments wherein Kris demonstrates the most "control" over their situation are heavily tied to darkness, often featuring a Smash to Black, Fade Out or a change in the SOUL's perspective that prevents them perceiving what Kris is doing, thus freeing them up to act how they really want to. This can include Kris following the command to enter a room, but keeping their eyes closed so all the SOUL can see is a black screen and the flavour text, or ripping the SOUL out of their body and trapping it in a confined area whilst they act off-screen. Chapter 4, featuring a heavy light/dark motif, has Kris demonstrate the longest period of personality during the scenes in the Holiday home, and it's showcased during the Jackenstein fight that Kris's Eyes Out of Sight render them effectively invisible to the SOUL in a darkened area. Kris's repeated tendency to look at the SOUL's perspective after cutscenes or similar implies they're constantly aware of the SOUL's observation of them, and are gradually learning how to subvert said perception to their advantage. This tendency to utilise the darkness to "blind" the SOUL contrasts with the SOUL's own Light Is Good motif.
• Declaration of Protection: If you complete the Weird Route on Chapter 2, Kris will do this offscreen to Noelle trying to mitigate the damage you caused. If you continue it in Chapter 4, Noelle will confirm it openly. Whether or not they can make good on that promise is not their choice, however.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the Heroic Mime as an Audience Surrogate, by way of characters like Chrono, Red, or Eleven. A large number of JRPGs open with the player inhabiting a "blank slate" with minor pre-established backstory, like having a family and living in a charming town. Deltarune takes this concept further by having the player literally possessing Kris, showing how frightening it would be to suddenly have your autonomy stripped away by a higher power. Furthermore, Kris actually has a personality, identity, and goals outside of player input, and is tremendously uncomfortable with how little anyone notices or cares that the SOUL pushed that all aside. This is further picked at by Kris's encounters with Spamton, who habitually projects onto them in an increasingly unsettling manner, especially during the Weird Route, highlighting the negative implications of treating Kris as just your avatar. This reaches a head in Chapter 4, where the separation between Kris and the SOUL is made clearer than ever when Kris begins actively fighting it to keep it from learning more about the code to the shelter.
• Decoy Protagonist: You're controlling the SOUL, which happens to be inside Kris. They make this distinction violently clear by ripping the SOUL out of their chest to act on their own. By Chapter 4, not only have Kris's actions gone from suspicious to antagonistic — such as sabotaging Susie and the player's attempts to enter the shelter — the full prophecy doesn't treat Kris as anything but the "cage" the SOUL is housed in. All the while, Susie continues to receive essentially the majority of attention from the narrative, now up to and including major characters like Gerson and Ralsei actively believing it's her hope that can change the story for the better.
• Demonic Possession: By you, the player, via the SOUL, and Kris is not thrilled about this. Your ability to play Deltarune is contingent on you puppeting their body with their very, very reluctant consent, and no matter what choices you make, they make it clear that they resent having almost all their volition taken away. This is a recent occurrence, as characters in Hometown will comment on Kris's sudden unusual change in behavior. Depending on how you act however, Kris's attitude towards this arrangement can vary wildly. Playing the more straightforward, 'normal' route renders the SOUL with an irritated but largely tolerated relationship with Kris, while making the more disturbing and violent choices of the 'weird' route will make it abundantly clear that Kris has come to absolutely despise you for making them do things that harm Noelle and the people around them. In the latter circumstance, we see Kris desperately trying to do damage control to the best of their ability and convince the player to stop their course of action.
• Deuteragonist: The player is not strictly Kris, but rather the SOUL inside of them controlling their actions. As shown in The Stinger of Chapters 1 and 2, and a major section of Chapter 4, Kris on their own without the SOUL's influence is an entirely independent character, and whatever agenda they have may or may not match the player's.
• Didn't Think This Through: On the Weird Route, Kris' offscreen meeting with Noelle does manage to calm her down but still leaves her with some few obvious lingering questions, with it implied that some part of Noelle's mind suspects their words don't fully add up but is trying to avoid thinking too hard about it. Worse, despite removing the ThornRing from Noelle, Kris does not get rid of the thorn and instead evidently kept it on their person even when, in an appalling lack of foresight, going to talk to Noelle alone after shoving the SOUL into an open box in a locked closet that it easily escapes via the vent.
• Disappointed in You: After spending half of Chapter 4 in a Dark World looking for their mother, Kris finds out Toriel ditched choir practice to spend the night drinking and dancing with Sans. Kris notably hangs their head down and shamefully turns away from Susie when she looks at them in confusion. Once Toriel asks if they'd like to dance with her and Sans after Susie leaves, Kris is very quick to turn the offer down as they walk past them and refuses to engage in any further conversation.
• Does Not Like Spam: Kris only gets 10-20 HP from Hearts Donuts. For comparison, Susie gets 80-90 HP and reacts positively ("Mmm, blood!") while Noelle heals 30 HP despite a strongly negative reaction ("Mmm... what!? It's blood!?"). This is implied not to be from the taste but because anything heart-shaped reminds them of the SOUL that's dragging them around.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Many of Kris' interactions with the SOUL very clearly parallel themes of self-harm. Every time they remove the SOUL, it appears to be a painful ordeal for them as they twitch and - presumably in Chapter 1 - scream. In Chapter 4's Weird route, when they deliver a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to the SOUL, they really only reduce their own HP to half. Even without interacting with the SOUL, there are many hints that Kris engages in self-harm, such as the massive bloodstain at the foot of their bed, or how in Chapter 4's Weird route they bite through the core of the apple that Gerson offered to them (Apple seeds are said to contain trace amounts of cyanide).
• The Dragon: For both the Knight and The Caller, and that's assuming they're not one and the same:
  • Kris acted as the intermediary between the Knight and Tenna to deliver the former's deal to the Darkner, and opened the Dark Fountain in their home at the end of Chapter 2 that allows Tenna to keep the other heroes busy, all while leaving the door open for the Knight to enter the Dark World unopposed and retrieve whom they need.
  • They follow the Caller's orders without hesitation in Chapter 4, such as stopping Susie from entering the Shelter and getting closer to the truth of what's happening in Hometown.
• Dump Stat: Kris lacks any actions that scale with their Magic stat, making investments into it useless and allowing them to wear Magic-decreasing items (such as TennaTie) without penalty.
• Emo: Their appearance in Hometown riffs on this, with townspeople calling them creepy and a loner.
• Empty Shell: They initially come across as empty, between their gloomy appearance and near-complete lack of volition in either the Light or Dark Worlds. They show an increasing degree of autonomy and personality as the game goes on, but the game continues to call attention to their lack of personhood, with the Prophecy even referring to them as a "cage" — literally a husk that houses the SOUL.
• Enigmatic Minion: Kris is (seemingly) a minion of the Knight, removing their SOUL to create Dark Fountains on a mysterious Caller's telephonic command to fulfill a "promise" of unknown content. They’re also this to the player, and thus the main avatar for challenging the Knight and sealing Dark Fountains, including ones they created. In both cases, their intentions clearly don’t align well.
• Enmity with an Object: In Chapter 4, interacting with the electronic Santas in Noelle's house will reveal that several of them have low batteries because Kris glued their battery boxes shut to starve them.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Or Ambiguously Evil, in any case, but in spite of their collaboration with the antagonists and overall callousness, it's repeatedly shown that Kris does care for those closest to them (or grows to care over the course of the story), independently of the SOUL's influence. They're protective of Susie and Noelle, deeply miss Asriel, and even come to care for Ralsei (despite hints that Kris was not too fond of him in the earlier chapters), hugging him of their own volition should the player choose to comfort him at the end of Chapter 4. They also sincerely love their parents, Toriel and Asgore, and the feeling is mutual, even if they're struggling to cope with their separation like the rest of the family.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • For all their creepy and suspicious behavior, there's no indication Kris is prone to violence, and may in fact be quite averse. Not only will Kris keep any use of force in the Dark World nonlethal, they have LV 1 and 0 EXP even in the Light World.
  • They're implied to be an Empty Shell and quite mischievous, but in the Weird Route of Chapter 2, Ralsei and Susie will note that they look visibly distressed right after you goad Noelle into freezing Berdly into a coma. This implies that it was the player that did so, not Kris. This is outright confirmed if you choose to continue the Weird Route in Chapter 4, where it's revealed that Kris went behind the player's back to undo some of the damage off-camera (taking Berdly to the hospital, returning Noelle's watch if they took it, and removing the ThornRing from Noelle's finger while claiming it was all just a prank) and tried to keep this a secret from them. And if the player continues to hurt Noelle in Chapter 4, Kris completely flips out on the SOUL in the following cutscene, putting them in a garbage can and brutally beating it far more aggressively than they've behaved before.
  • Although Kris has intentionally scared and pranked Noelle in the past, Noelle will note that they look hurt if the player pranks her by having Kris step off the switch during the electricity puzzle in Chapter 2, implying that potentially dangerous pranks cross the line for them.
  • Fighting Spamton NEO apparently disturbs Kris immensely. It isn't clear whether this is because of Spamton NEO's incredibly disturbing Demonic Dummy-esque appearance, or if it's because of the parallels between Spamton's situation and their own.
  • Kris is implied, at least initially, to not be fully comfortable around Ralsei. In Chapter 2, Ralsei's drink heals Kris less than most of the drinks do for most characters, and their effectiveness is based on the drinker's feelings towards the character. Yet in Chapter 3's Sword Route, they're just as horrified at being forced to kill a game avatar of his as Susie's, and in Chapter 4, if you try to make Kris say cruel things to Ralsei when he bares his insecurities to them, they will refuse to do so, twisting the dialogue choice you make into something kinder. In addition, Kris can hug Ralsei without player input at the height of Ralsei's despair after four chapters of potentially having to be forced to do so.
  • Kris will deal severely stunted damage against the Roaring Knight compared to their friends, due to their seeming allegiance to them. That is, unless Susie and Ralsei are defeated, in which case they'll start doing more damage, even outpacing what Susie can pull off if both are down. No matter the reason, Kris isn't happy about their friends being harmed.
  • If Kris has a Shadow Crystal on hand when looking at a prophecy, they'll desperately try and get it to show them something different only to get nothing. Whatever their motive for helping the Roaring Knight with whatever it is its doing, Kris evidently want to fight fate as much as Susie or Ralsei.
  • On a lighter note, it seems they have very little tolerance for "cartoon criticism", anime reviews, and nerdy things in general other than video games and whatever Asriel likes. If you try and read the review board in the "TEENZ-OWN" corner of the library in Chapter 1, instead of No/Yes options it's "No No No No No No No No No" and "Yes", while if attempting to read it again in Chapter 2, it simply states that just looking at it is "sapping your energy rapidly" without specifying what was written. When Alphys lets them borrow her VHS tape of The Symptoms and starts going on a rapid-fire rant about the show, Kris will reject her offer outside the player's influence. Plus, even with all their experience in videogames, Kris can't bring themself to unironically say "Gaming is my life" if Ralsei asks about it.
• Evil All Along: Downplayed. The big twist of Chapter 1 is that Kris and the SOUL are not remotely the same being, and that whatever is going on with Kris, they are involved in something much more sinister than first appearances. Just what that is and why they're a part of it, however, is a mystery which encompasses the entire game. Chapter 2 seems to Subvert this trope by revealing that Kris's "evil turn" was simply them getting up to eat the pie Toriel had baked. Chapters 3 and 4, however, rescinds and Zig Zags this for a variety of reasons showing that they are working with antagonistic forces offscreen from the player, but their true alignment is unclear. It's shown that Kris made an arrangement with Tenna to "keep the Fun Gang busy", and Kris's motivations for opening a Dark Fountain currently remain unknown. Kris's odd interactions with the Roaring Knight during their battle suggests they're actively working together, or at the very least, for some reason seem reluctant to harm each other. It's also eventually revealed that Kris is in league with a mysterious Caller, who is implicitly either the Knight or someone who seems to be working in conjunction with the Knight's actions, but their alliance seems to be one that's being coerced out of Kris rather than something they're in complete agreement with. Either way it's clear Kris is allied with multiple parties that are on some level opposed to each other, but their personal feelings on the matter appear uncertain, and increasingly wavering.
• Exact Words: Starting in Chapter 2, Kris sometimes follows the player's choices while subverting their intent, either on impulse or as an act of rebellion.
  • If you tell Kris to open the door of Asriel's room in Queen's mansion, they do so, but they keep their eyes closed without walking in.
  • If you have Kris say they're fine after fighting Spamton NEO, their body language will show to Susie that they are not.
  • Making Kris say they'd want to take anyone but Susie to the town festival has them do so, but in a very confused tone of voice. Having them be silent instead makes them look very intently towards Susie.
  • Using their "Check" ACT to find out more about the Knight in their Chapter 3 battle causes the narration to say Kris analyzed them yet learned nothing from it, implying they already know something about the Knight but aren't going to divulge for the player. Doing it again makes Kris point at nothing in the distance.
  • When Ralsei asks if Kris thinks he should be allowed to seek his own identity instead of living only to support Kris and Susie, the player can have Kris say "Of course not". Kris will then say the first two words clearly and then fake a yawn and mumble the third, so that Ralsei only hears "Of course".
  • They strive to be as unhelpful as possible when questioning the town's churchgoers about the shelter, using Exact Words in dialogue options that either just confuse people or limit the information in their responses. While it does eventually slip out that one of the shelter codes is kept at the Holiday estate, Kris still prevents the SOUL from learning anything else.
  • If you tell Kris to turn the knob on the door in the back of the church at the end of Chapter 4, they'll turn it, but won't pull the door open.
• Extreme Melee Revenge: In the Weird Route of Chapter 4, after forcing Noelle to put the ThornRing back on, Kris shambles into the bathroom and places the SOUL into a trash can before kicking it repeatedly. Checking your stats after the event will show that Kris is at 10/20 HP, having literally beaten you half to death.
• Extreme Omnisexual: As a result of growing up in an exclusively-monster community and not having a high opinion on humans, Kris has been shown several times to be into monsters and the monster-resembling Darkners. They can "unconciously click on a monsters 4 humans ad" while fighting Poppups, have been given several Ship Tease moments with monsters Susie and Noelle and the Darkner Ralsei, and can flirt with several opponents. What really throws them into this trope is that they can flirt with a Watercooler, of all things. Notably, they cannot flirt with Mizzles or Miss Mizzle, the beautiful water spirits inside the watercoolers, implying Kris genuinely finds the Watercooler itself to be more attractive than what's inside.
• Extreme Omnivore: Though not nearly to the same extent as Susie, Kris has been shown to eat some things that are considered inedible to humans, most notably moss and even fried Pipis. The only exception depicted so far is the blood-filled Hearts Donut, which they outright hate eating out of their implied tenuous relationship with the SOUL. On the Weird Route in Chapter 4, where normally if Gerson's tea is refused they're given an apple to eat instead, on the Weird Route Kris eats the apple, core and all, while also chewing the seeds, which becomes very bleak when you remember apple seeds contain extremely trace amounts of cyanide.note The amount of seeds in a single apple can't even reach a lethal dose of cyanide, but it doesn't change the fact that Kris is so emotionally damaged by the things the SOUL has forced them to do that they're desperate enough to bank on the incredibly small chance of killing themselves by eating apple seeds. Not to mention the disturbing parallel to the Fallen Child's own method of suicide in Undertale.
• Eyes Out of Sight: Kris's eyes are almost always shadowed and hidden behind their long bangs, adding to their reserved and mysterious character. During the fight with Jackenstein in Chapter 4, while Susie and Ralsei's eyes are visible, the player cannot see Kris at all because their eyes are still hidden.
• Fatal Flaw: They have both a Sense of Independence and Complacency that oddly both oppose and feed each other. Whether it has to do with a genuine secret, or personal preference, Kris tends to be a VERY private person who doesn't typically share what's on their mind without a push. They have had trouble connecting to others more over time as they've changed, and isolate themselves while valuing and desiring freedom and choice as a vessel for the SOUL. Before the player controls them in Chapter 1, it's revealed they only did the bare minimum of social interaction and many characters note with relief that this shift is happening, whereas if they had grown up around people more they'd more obviously notice their change in behaviour as strange. This sense of isolationism also tends to come with a sense of stagnation; They're complacent in a lot of things as the chapter goes on, to the point that it clashes with Susie's desire to figure out what's going on and getting deeper into the plot. It's implied that if a change happens that doesn't seem to benefit them or sometimes even someone close to them, they will not like it - the prime example being Asriel being away at college and Sans changing things in their home that have been around since the first chapter.
  • This is a much more active set of problems in the Weird Route where Kris has, ironically, less to hide - since their mystery is sidelined more to focus on how the player is the more active threat. They don't explain the situation to their friends about what is happening when the SOUL isn't in direct control of them, and try to handle it on their own. The best example of this happens between Chapters 2 and 4, where Kris is revealed to have gone to help Berdly and Noelle autonomously (Sense of independence) - yet doesn't explain anything to anyone despite Berdly now being in a coma; and removing the Thorn from Noelle, but asking for her to ignore what happened despite there being a non-zero chance of the SOUL eventually finding out (Complacency). The latter especially backfires, as it ultimately fully breaks Noelle in Chapter 4.
• Fighting from the Inside: As the game goes on, Kris seemingly tries to take some degree of control over their body back from the SOUL by force, to varying degrees of success.
  • When trying to find the Shadow Mantle in Chapter 3, the levels suddenly shift in design and begin to resemble the path to the shelter south of Hometown. The closer the player gets to the shelter, the more Kris tries to steer their character away, until they're right up against its doors.
  • The encounters involving the Knight have Kris at their most unhelpful for both the party and the player. Kris holds back any meaningful info they could give to the SOUL, wasting the "Check" analysis by learning nothing or pointing away from the enemy in their Chapter 3 fight, then trying to cloud their thoughts with an absurd imagination if the SOUL asks Kris to think about the Knight during Chapter 4 (until they realize they can just open their eyes). Kris will also deliberately sabotage a player's attempts to defeat or reach the Knight, dealing less than half their usual damage when attacking it in the TV World battle and refusing to do anything if they manage to reach the Knight at Chapter 4's starting chase sequence.
  • When you're in Castle Town in Chapter 4, and discover Ralsei's barren room, Ralsei will ask Kris if it's okay for a Darkner like himself to be more independent. If you pick the option "Of course not", Kris will deliberately cover up the last word by yawning and then nod when Ralsei asks if they said "Of course" to keep the player from being able to say no.
  • If the player chooses to continue the Weird Route in Chapter 4 by entering Noelle's room with them, Kris twitches and puts their fingers in front of Noelle's mouth to try and stop her from speaking, even while possessed. The SOUL overpowers them through dialogue options and not only makes their presence known to Noelle, but uses its own voice while making Kris put the ThornRing back on her.
    • After getting kicked out of the Holiday house following this scene, Susie tries to ask Kris if something wrong is going on. The dialogue box that pops up has four blank answers and no text while the entire screen is given a slight pink tint, as if Kris is desperately trying to prevent the player from saying anything.
  • In the same chapter, when Kris and Susie reminisce in front of a piano in the Light World, the player has the option to tell Susie that they will "never play [the piano] again". If it's chosen and you're on the Weird Route, Kris will prevent themself from saying this by biting their hand with enough force to make a Sickening "Crunch!". The wound is so bad it deals 1 HP damage and makes Susie remark on how it might leave a bruise.
    • In the same area also on the Weird Route, if you interact with the prayer candle rack and choose to pray for Noelle, Kris not only refuses but goes a step further and kicks the rack hard enough to risk breaking it, evidently livid that the SOUL would have the gall to show concern for her after what they did.
• Fire-Forged Friends: While their initial feelings towards Susie aren't known, she's seen bullying them at the start of the story. A day in the Dark World later, however, she openly calls Kris her friend, and is much nicer to them (in her own fashion, but still). The feeling is implied to be mutual, considering Monster Kid notices Kris getting angry when they say Susie sucks (even though Monster Kid was describing things Susie did before entering the Dark World). Most significantly, they protect Susie from King's bullets just before they hit her without player input.
• Five-Aces Cheater: By following several obscure steps in Chapter 3, Kris can run into the Seven Flying Aces, a group of Rudinn born from playing cards that they printed and colored in the past in order to cheat at card games before forgetting about them inside the couch. Curiously, you only find six in the area, but another Rudinn appears in another secret area in Chapter 4.
• Fourth-Wall Observer: Implied, though not to the extent as Ralsei. Kris often ends cutscenes by turning downwards, towards the "camera", and glares directly at it in the ending of Chapter 1 and the Weird Route in Chapter 4, indicating that they know how the player observes them. They also play several songs from the game's soundtrack on piano if left to their own devices in the Normal Route of Chapter 4; later on, Ralsei's flustered reaction to being caught humming the Dark Sanctuary theme makes it sound like he thinks that nobody else is supposed to hear the game's music, which Kris would need to in order to play those songs.
• Fragile Speedster: Because they fight Spamton NEO alone in the Weird Route, Kris is forced to dodge his attacks with precision if they don't want to take all the damage.
• Freak Out: Subtle and gradual throughout the Weird Route, since most of the things they do are narrated or described in third-person. Kris starts to be unnerved with what they were made to do to Noelle during Chapter 2, with Ralsei and Susie noticing their expressions not aligning up with what the SOUL chose, similar to when all of them face off against Spamton NEO in the Normal Route. In Chapter 4's Weird Route, Kris behaves far more violently when they wrest back control from the SOUL, including beating it senseless, attacking a prayer candle with Noelle's name on it, biting their own hand, and eating apple seeds in what's implied to be an attempt at Self-Harm. Implicitly this is due to guilt over what they, under your control, did to Noelle.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the spiffy new animation for entering a Dark World, Kris's eye can be briefly seen for a frame or two. Their eye is shown to be red.
• Friend-or-Idol Decision: Implied to be in play as of Chapter 4. They're revealed to be in contact with an individual who really doesn't want Susie to figure out the shelter code, but at the same time it's apparent that they're very close to Susie at this point and even wants to believe in Susie's blind hope that they could fight fate, the only thing stopping them from helping Susie more than they are being that they made a promise to their contact.

G-O

• The Gadfly: Kris is a prankster at heart, and has shown a few moments where they'd prefer to mess around and goof off.
  • When the player discards an item, the narration describes Kris as doing so with fondness, regret, indifference, or contempt—but at complete random, regardless what the item was. We're left to assume Kris is simply entertaining themselves by acting erractically, or even being deliberately confusing. (Comically, many player do end up wrongly assuming the messages reflect Kris' feelings toward a given item.)
  • Trying to use the communication device in their room at Queen's mansion results in Kris attempting to stick their entire head inside to make funny noises — something Susie also tries to do. Afterwards, they start thinking about dumping the many bath bombs they also have in the room through the horn. The only reason they don't do so is because there's not enough time to.
  • Backtrack after the acid tunnel ride with Susie in tow, and you can interact with the swan boat switch. Narration indicates that they're wondering about clogging the place up with multiple swan boats.
  • It's especially the case with all their pranks on Noelle:
    • They can come across an advertisement for a Ferris wheel as they wander across Cyber City. Noelle compares it to the one that the upcoming festival has, before wondering if Susie would accept an invitation to ride it with her. Offer to have Kris ride it with her, and (if it's not during the Weird Route) she'll assume they want to shake the gondola when it reaches the top, something Kris already did back when they were kids.
    • After Berdly presents his obnoxious statue to Queen, Kris can be made to repeatedly observe it with Noelle wondering why they're so fixated on it. The flavor text changes to describe their supposed awe in the statue, but when Noelle tries to play along by saying she appreciates the statue too, the narration immediately changes its tune to say it "seems to suck bad". Noelle yells at them (with a smile) for this.
    • Kris and Noelle come across an electric barrier that has to be temporarily deactivated by standing on one of two buttons. Kris can be made to step off the button before Noelle gets the chance to walk past, to which she'll respond by asking if it'll take a dog treat to make them stay on the switch. Kris can howl out a "Nooooo", making her laugh, and if they're prompted to answer "Yes", Noelle is caught off-guard by such a genuine answer. Stepping off again reminds her of the times they've worked on group projects together.
    • Elect to give Queen's gift box to Noelle, and she'll be flattered… until she remembers the box was something she sold while pretending to run a stall, with her dialogue implying Kris was asking for a refund to get something else. She immediately takes off the box to confront them about the remark, smiling all the while.
    • Noelle's mother has a bunch of electronic dancing Santa toys placed around the Holiday house. Some of them are slower and have lower pitched voices, which Noelle says are usually because Kris kept trying to glue their battery cases shut in an attempt to "starve them".
  • In Chapter 3, a Pippins in the S-Rank changing room asks Kris if they like to gamble. Answering "Yes" has the Pippins say they know Kris really doesn't; they just enjoy the idea of cheating in games instead. This is best seen with the Seven Flying Aces they printed out and colored to try cheating at cards.
• Gameplay Protagonist, Story Protagonist: Kris is the main playable character, but far from a conventional protagonist in-story. The player's actions explicitly do not reflect Kris's feelings, which the game tends to deliberately obscure. Kris's motivations are kept hidden, as are most of the action they take outside the player's control, and their most active role so far has been during the visit to the Holiday household, when they're the direct antagonist to the player. If anything, Susie can come off as the game's true main character given how her actions are often what drive the main story forward and encourage development in the rest of the cast. But if Kris is led down the Weird storyline, the player takes over as the true Villain Protagonist due to what they can influence as the SOUL.
• Glass Cannon: When fighting Spamton NEO face-to-face in the Weird Route, Kris is more powerful than ever and even has a new double damage attack, but because they're alone, the player has less total health for the fight.
• The Gloves Come Off: During the fight with the Knight, Kris deals less damage than Ralsei — unless Susie and Ralsei are both down, they will start dealing massively increased damage (exceeding even Susie's base attack damage). Evidently, even if Kris and the Knight are in cahoots with each other, seeing their friends get beaten so brutally isn't something they will stand for.
• Good Is Not Nice:
  • Downplayed, but Kris isn't the kindest character as a whole, which is reflected in most of the unfriendly choices available. However, multiple points in the game stress that while Kris isn't exactly nice, it doesn't mean they don't care about others.
  • Being your "vessel", you can also invoke this by choosing to be bitter, making Kris show it towards other characters, despite eventually ending off on a good note quietly in both Chapters 1 and 2.
• Good Morning, Crono: Every chapter of Deltarune involves Kris waking up.
• Green-Eyed Monster:
  • Kris really, really loves and cares for Asriel, but their room in Castle Town implies that they're jealous of his achievements, and seeks to have them for themself. In a scene in Chapter 4, when Susie jokes about how it must be hard for Kris to be the cooler sibling of the two, Kris's response is to hesitate, then nod.
  • Berdly accuses Kris of being envious of his and Noelle's academic success, but nothing else supports this.
• Growing Up Sucks: There are many hints that a major part of Kris's teenage moodiness stems from how unpleasant their experiences have been since moving on from their childhood with Asriel and the Holidays.
  • They were practically inseparable from their older brother Asriel. Being the younger sibling means having to wait until he can come back home from college for the summer. They're left with their mother Toriel as their only company, since their parents separated following some sort of townwide controversy that eventually made Asgore lose his position as the police chief.
  • Though Noelle and her family used to be close with theirs, they grew distant as time went on, starting with the disappearance of Noelle's older sister Dess and worsening after her father fell ill. As Berdly sadly notes in his own monologue, there will come a time where Berdly, Noelle, and the rest of their class has to graduate from school and face an uncertain future in adulthood, with even less chances to see everyone they know. Reflecting the estrangement Kris and Noelle face, their character Teas mutually heal only 70HP (for context, Susie Tea heals them for 120HP and 400HP respectively despite both only knowing her for a short time).
  • They'll have an immense feeling of relief wash over them upon reading the slogan for the library's TEENZ-OWN/TeenZone, "Where Teen's Can Be Kid's", as if they're glad to see there's at least one place where they can still be a "kid". Chapter 4 sees this replaced with a notice that the library is being pushed to replace their use of the ICE-E mascot after facing licensing issues, which instills dread into Kris.
  • Ramb speculates that part of Kris's motivations for their actions, such as opening a Dark Fountain in their house, is their desire to have fun "just like the old days", using their adventures as escapism from their struggles in the Light World. As Dark Worlds reflect the feelings of their creators, it's very telling to see both Tenna and Ramb offer to let Kris have fun by playing games like they used to in their childhood, with a lot of Tenna's dialogue being dedicated to how the Dreemurrs and Holidays used to spend their time together.Tenna: (If the Sword Route wasn't completed) Kris!! I watched you GROW UP!! Who do you think taught you to LAUGH and CRY!? What, you think it's MY fault you forgot HOW!? Well, the GOOD OLD DAYS are HERE, Kris! On VHS!
  • After getting Chapter 3's Egg, their title changes to "Level [X] Enjoying: The Youthful Days". One of the Flying Aces encountered in these Egg rooms has a comment that reflects both Kris's height and their underlying issues with no longer being a child:Blue Mini Rudinn: KRIS, YOU LOOK RATHER BIG... HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING OUT? I GUESS YOU GREW UP. WELL, STOP THAT.
• Guile Hero: While you may choose which ACTs among the few proposed they will take, Kris is the one to think of them in the first place, meaning they're able to assess the personality of enemy Darkners and the situation in which the battles take place accurately enough, which is the reason why their ACTs are stronger than Susie's and Ralsei's. This is why the menu labels them as "Tactician" and "Director" in Chapter 2 and 3, respectively. They also demonstrate their intelligence outside of combat when they twist the SOUL's commands they dislike the most in order to technically accomplish the order to the letter while depriving you of the intended outcome, or, more sinisterly, when they manipulate their loved ones in order to fulfill their obligations to the voice on the phone.
• Hammerspace: Kris is responsible for both their own equipment and the party's entire inventory.
  • As a Lightner, Kris can pull their sword and a shield from seemingly nowhere, never carrying a sheath or strap for either, as their equipment shapeshifts into what they need depending on their actions. This is lampshaded in a piece of concept art◊ by Temmie Chang, which includes a doodle of Temmie bewilderedly wondering where the sword goes when Kris isn't using it.
  • Their inventory can hold up to 40 items on their person, with different items categorized into their own menus, and they are capable of holding Lancer, Rouxls, and the original        Starwalker within their pockets. Justified since those three Darkners are toys.
  • Spamton even lampshades this on two occasions with a full armor inventory (something that is extremely unlikely to happen in the course of normal play unless the player is doing it deliberately). If his NEO form is defeated in a normal playthrough, he'll be incredulous that they've gone through the effort to clog their inventory (inevitably with repeated purchases of the same weapons and armour) with the only reasonable explanation being an attempt to reject his reward. On the Weird Route, trying to buy the ThornRing causes him to comment on how their pockets are spacious enough to hold Lancer but still can't keep the Ring on them.Spamton: THERE'S A [Boy], BUT THERE'S NO ROOM FOR A [Ring].
  • Played for Laughs if you decide to steal the Susie shaped statue and the Ice-E cryptid, which are obviously too big for them to be normally carried.
  • They eventually draw the line at taking a couch for Ralsei though, citing that it's too big for them to carry around despite possibly carrying a statue around earlier. So instead they just settle for one of the cushions off the couch.
• Happily Adopted: By the Dreemurrs. Even though Toriel and Asgore have problems in their own lives, both of them still love Kris dearly and take opportunities to say so.
  • While Kris never speaks, they still have narration suggesting the affection is mutual. They hold Toriel's hand and hug her at school in Chapter 1, and the narration never refers to Toriel as anything but Kris's mother. The same is true of Asgore and his title as Kris's father.
  • Kris still holds some affection for their brother Asriel, as noted in a few incidental places. The way that the narration details Asriel, he is Loved by All around town, and characters comment on how the two siblings were practically inseparable when Asriel was still living there. There's even dialogue that said Kris used to wear fake horns until their "real" horns grew in when they were younger, because they wanted to look more like the rest of their family.
• He Who Must Not Be Heard: Narration implies Kris can be quite verbose, but their actual dialogue is never visible to the player, nor do they have any Voice Grunting. While presented as if just abstracting whatever the player would say in Kris' place, their words are often implied to be divergent or antagonistic toward the SOUL's orders. This really makes Kris more mysterious and distant, essentially giving the player the Silent Treatment.
• The Heavy: How they're implicated into the plans of the Knight is still ambiguous, but they are their most active agent from our perspective, engineering the events of Chapter 3 and spending a good part of Chapter 4 stopping the SOUL from getting the code to the shelter.
• Height Angst: There are a few moments that suggest Kris is either insecure about their height, or willing to pretend to be insecure about their height for the sake of a joke. Queen challenging them to an arcade game on a machine which is too large for them to reach the controls causes them to collapse in shame, and the narration dubs a stack of grocery store baskets too tall for them to reach the top of "The Throne of Evils".
• Hero Antagonist: While they are an Ambiguously Evil antagonist in the normal route, they take on this role after the Weird Route is completed in Chapter 2. Whatever machinations they have going on in the normal route take a backseat as they try to undo all the damage the player caused, taking Berdly to the hospital, convincing Noelle that the events of Chapter 2 really were nothing more than a nightmare, reassuring her that Berdly will get better, and taking the ThornRing from her. In Chapter 4, they try as hard as they can to get Noelle away from the SOUL, even urgently rushing her out of her bedroom if they notice it in the room before it possesses them again, pleading for the player to stop if it does possess them again, and beating the SOUL half to death in retaliation if the Weird Route is continued in Chapter 4.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: In the Dark World, anyway. Kris uses swords (pencils in the Light World) to fit their theme as a Knight in Shining Armor. May have something to do with their fascination with knives. Interestingly, the Prophecy in Chapter 4 as well as a comment from Ralsei indicates that Susie might be the "intended" sword wielder of the party, as the section of the prophecy showing Susie depicts her wielding a sword, and Ralsei mentions Susie was "supposed" to wear ribbons as armor like Kris does.
• Heroic Mime: Subverted. Kris' dialogue is never visualized to the player, we just see prompts for dialogue choices, superficially abstracting whatever the player intends to say. Paying attention to how characters react during dialogue reveals Kris is regularly speaking of their own accord, even in complete contradiction to whatever the player means.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: While at least decently respected for being one of Asgore and Toriel's children, Kris is disparaged by their classmates and the townsfolk alike for being a bit of a troublemaker when they were younger. Though being a Creepy Child and a prankster didn't help their case. Chapter 4 worsens things due to associating with local ruffian Susie. In Card Kingdom, King demonizing the Lightners results in Kris being an open target for any antagonistic Darkners that aren't Just Following Orders.
• Hidden Depths:
  • According to some Lightners, Kris is an excellent piano player, and used to play it at the hospital for the patients, as well as at church from time to time. Whenever the player tries to get them to play the piano, however, they just make a discordant noise; Kris isn't happy about that, as Susie's comments in Chapter 2 indicate. A certain puzzle in Chapter 4 requires you to read some hastily scrawled sheet music and then play said long and complicated piano solo. If you mess it up, after some encouragement from Susie, Kris takes over and plays an earnestly beautiful piano solo before leaving you in the reins again. Kris demonstrates by far the highest degree of bodily control shown yet in this cutscene, sweeping across the keys and swaying gently back and forth, implying they are feeling genuine joy. One of the first things they'll do after ripping out the SOUL at Noelle's house in Chapter 4 is go play the Holidays' piano of their own volition, proving they are quite talented and clearly proud of their skill. If you try and tell Susie you're never going to play the piano again after she compliments Kris's playing in the church, Kris will either cough mid-sentence (in the Normal Route) or bite their hand hard enough to cause HP loss (in the Weird Route) to stop themselves from saying it.
  • Drinking Hot Chocolate is described as having emotional value for Kris, what with it being a reminder of their beloved big brother Asriel (and, more specifically, how he would buy it for them following their parents' divorce). The narration states that "Your throat tightened", implying that Kris is Trying Not to Cry due to both Asriel's distance and the disapproval and anger he would feel if Kris's true intentions were revealed.
  • Berdly notes that Kris is actually a very smart student, only third in the class behind himself and Noelle (and, much later, Berdly confesses his grades are only good because Noelle helps him study). He says this very condescendingly, of course, but the fact that he repeatedly acknowledges their potential at all speaks volumes. As noted in Chapter 2, Berdly isn't nearly as smart as he claims and is reliant on Noelle for good grades. This actually makes Kris the second smartest student.
  • It's noted on numerous occasions by NPCs that Kris was a very mischievous child and pulled a lot of pranks back in the day, such as covering themself in ketchup and claiming it was blood, putting a bath bomb in the toilet, dropping the "green lizard" into the pit in a video game on purpose to make Asriel upset, swapping out Noelle's eggnog with mayonnaise when she wasn't looking, and hiding under her bed to scare her (because she had a fear of "humans under the bed").
  • It's made rather apparent that they don't like the idea of their mother hooking up with the town grocer, Sans. When they come home after a particularly exhausting day in the Dark Sanctuary and see the two dancing in their living room, with Toriel being drunk, Kris is notably hanging their head down in discomfort and outright rejects their invitation to dance with them by going to their room. They also spend the night burying their head in their pillow in an attempt to drown out having to listen to their endeavors through the walls.
• Hidden Eyes: Their eyes are never seen until The Stinger of Chapter 1, where their visible eye is glowing bright red. It can be seen again in Chapter 2 for a brief moment when Kris and Susie are leaping back into the Dark World, and once more at the very end, right as they open another Dark Fountain. In the Dark Sanctuaries, while Susie and Ralsei have visible eyes in the darkness, Kris does not.
• Hormone-Addled Teenager:
  • Implied to be one, considering they have "borrowed" Asriel's magazine containing a scantily clad creature in it (if they didn't simply claim it on Asriel's behalf).
  • Narration also says they are filled with a "certain power" when looking at GIGA Queen's legs at the very first save point in Queen's mansion.
  • The Poppups' targeted advertising might tempt Kris into clicking on them by advertising possible "monsters 4 humans".
  • Spamton sees this in them, claiming they want "HOTSINGLE".
  • Tenna mentions how Kris would view the salacious music video channel involving crocodiles in bikinis with Dess' help, prompting some parental blocks. When they encounter the Dark World equivalent of those blocks, the text stating that they knowingly input the passcode for them (even if you didn't solve the puzzle to get the codes) suggests that they cracked the code at some point to watch those music videos on their own.
• Hypnotic Gaze: Implied to some extent if fighting Jevil non-violently, where the party uses various hypnosis techniques to tire him out.* Ralsei chanted something!* Susie spun something around!* Kris gazed strangely!
• I Am Not Left-Handed: Implied in Chapter 2's Weird Route. While fighting Spamton NEO alone at the end of the Cyber World, Kris can use X-Slash, an ACT that has them perform two critical attacks in a single turn, which the SOUL can't make Kris perform at any other point in the story as of Chapter 4.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Despite the sickly appearance Kris has without the SOUL, they still have the ludicrous dexterity to throw any object like a bullet and can nail the SOUL out of the air when necessary, with there being no way for the player to dodge said shots.
• Inhuman Eye Concealers: Kris's eyes may or not glow red constantly, but they have every time they show through their bangs.
• Interspecies Romance: If they're made to click on a Poppup, one of this the potential ads presented is one for "monsters 4 humans in your area". They also have Ship Tease with both Susie and Noelle, as well as the Darkner Ralsei.
• Irony: During the Holiday house segment in chapter 4 Kris does their damndest to keep both the Soul and Susie away from Dess' guitar so neither will be able to get the Shelter code hidden inside. They go so far as to rip the Soul out of their body and locking it in one of the manor's closets when it discovers the code's existence. Unfortunately, the Soul is still able to move and since the player now knows the significance of the guitar and without Kris to knowingly mess with their perception of things, they break out and try to get back to Dess' room. Kris' desperate attempts to keep them away culminate in Susie getting the guitar and seeing that the Shelter code is inside. Most likely if Kris had just obscured the Shelter code, as chapter 2 and 4 confirm that it is possible for them to use Exact Words or malicious compliance to hide things from the player the player would have just dismissed the guitar as unimportant and moved on. Which would have prevented the entire sequence of events that lead to Susie finding it from happening. In other words: By making it clear through their actions that the guitar is what the player is looking for, Kris pretty much guaranteed that the Soul and Susie would find it eventually.
• Irrational Hatred: While it's understandable that nobody would want to be puppeteered by Powers That Be, Kris is extremely hostile towards the SOUL yet unwilling to completely destroy it regardless of the choices taken, for reasons yet to be known. While they are even more angry during the Weird Route, Kris still treats the SOUL like trash in the Normal Route where the SOUL's involvement helps them bond with their companions. Chapter 4 reveals the likely reason is that the SOUL and the goal it makes Kris follow is contrary to whatever enigmatic plan they promised to help complete.
• Jerkass to One: Kris has their fair share of grudges and plays plenty of pranks, but seems very willing to exploit Alphys' hesitance to push back. They show her zero respect in school, openly sleeping through her classes, and the meaner options to Alphys (like stealing the box of chocolates sent to her or chugging a glass of the juice she wanted in front of her) are implied to be Kris' preference,
• I Just Want to Be Free: Whether it's for some future plan, just so they don't have to act like a zombie, or if they'll die without it, Kris doesn't keep the SOUL out of their body for long. But Kris still definitely wants to be rid of the player's control, expressing as much displeasure as they're capable of.
• I Just Want to Be Special: One of the search results found in their room in Queen's mansion shows they want to be able to use magic. Further implied by the description of their ability to ACT in Dark World battles, which specifically points out how it has no magical properties.
• Kick the Dog: When gathering information at the church in Chapter 4, a parched Alphys is reluctant to make herself a drink thinking that Susie's going to make fun of her for her preferred combo, and Kris can decide to get one for her. The player can instead have Kris drink it right in front of her. Kris will also throw the glass at her feet for no reason other than to be a dick—and it wasn't in the description at all, meaning it was Kris' idea. Alphys answers Kris regardless, after she coughs.
• Kill Tally:
  • The Sword Route adds a cosmetic stat denotedly only with an asterisk showing the number of enemies killed in the MANTLE game for the rest of Chapter 3.
  • Using the Black Shardnote They can be damaged without it, but the Black Shard makes Kris strong enough to take out almost their entire health bar in one go when you can normally only do chip damage to kill the Titan Spawn in Chapter 4 adds a "Slain" stat to Kris's profile listing their number of kills. It should be noted that even on the Weird Route, Kris does not personally kill anyone otherwise.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Takes on this appearance in the Dark World. They also defend their allies from an attack by King during the boss battle with him.
• Knightly Sword and Shield: Wields a sword and shield as a knight in the Dark World.
• The Leader: Mainly of the Levelheaded and Mastermind variety, able to keep a cool head at all times during their adventures and being the one who gives their party members strategic orders to participate in ACT commands. They're also the one who ultimately makes the call on whether to fight or spare opponents.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: If they are evil, they pale in comparison to an unrepentant "weird route" SOUL.
• Loophole Abuse: As the chapters go by, Kris starts to figure out that they can get around the SOUL's commands by following them merely in spirit if they don't want to. Alternatively, if the command given is ambiguous or not specific enough, Kris will use this as leeway to execute them in any way they fancy that lines up with their actual preferences.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: They use a shield for their Defend Command.
• The Man Behind the Man:
  • The Sword Route reveals that they were this for the events of Chapter 3, with Tenna's in-game avatar pleading with them that he’d done as they instructed in exchange for never being turned off again. Still, though, this wasn’t perfect; though opening the Dark Fountain obviously endangered Toriel, it was apparently specifically the Knight who insisted she be captured and placed in a gacha capsule.
  • The events of the start of Chapter 4 further add that an unknown Caller is contacting Kris and making demands of them over the phone, relaying details such as where the next Dark Fountain will be and ordering Kris to keep Dess' guitar out of other people's hands. How this ties into everything isn't entirely clear yet, but it's shown that Kris is hesitant but made a promise to follow them regardless.
• Mars Needs Women: Inverted; Kris is hinted to be attracted to Susie and possibly Noelle, and them clicking on Poppups might involve an advert of "monsters 4 humans in your area". Conversely, they seem disturbed by the sight of other humans in a book. Most likely, this is a result of growing up exclusively around monsters.
• Meaningful Name: A "Kris" is a type of Indonesian dagger said to be able to trap souls, which cannot be a coincidence considering they are literally a vessel for a SOUL that isn't theirs. It also reflects the strange habits that Kris demonstrates involving knives when the SOUL isn't controlling them.
• Meat Puppet: It's entirely possible for the SOUL to treat Kris like an object under its control, even if Kris can resist. The first time they enter the Dark World in Chapter 1, their class description as a "LV1 Human" reads, "Body contains a human SOUL". The Japanese localization translates it as "A body that houses a human SOUL". Disturbingly, even the prophecy dehumanizes Kris this way.
• Mistaken Identity: The enemies in the Dark Sanctuaries attack the party because there's a prophecy warning of what is presumably the Roaring Knight, but it's so vaguely worded ("the knight with the blade casts a great shadow on the land") most of the Darkners assume it means Kris. Rather humorous given the players were being mislead as such until shortly before.
• The Mole: Kris's intent toward the party's primary goals are unclear, but they've made at least one Dark Fountain in secret, try to keep Susie from getting into the shelter, and there's an enormous amount of evidence they're working with the Knight.
• Momma's Boy: Despite being a teenager, they still let Toriel lead them into the school by hand and get a hug. Berdly even comments on Toriel usually being their project partner.
• Mouth of Sauron: Implied in Chapter 3 if the player pursues the Sword route. Tenna's last interaction with HERO_SWORD in MANTLE suggests Kris served as an intermediary between Tenna and the Knight, as the deal he made with the latter was also a deal with Kris, which is corroborated further by Tenna mentioning Kris and the Knight as separate entities.
• Must Make Amends: If the Player pursues the Weird Route in Chapter 2, then Chapter 4 adds that Kris spent time offscreen trying their best to remedy the consequences of what the SOUL had done to Noelle and Berdly after abandoning it underneath their bathroom sink.
  • Berdly can be seen still unconscious in the hospital, and talking to the monster at the desk reveals Kris was the one that dragged his body all the way there. Interacting with him gives you the option to swap the hot water bottle on his head to help his recovery, but interacting with the space heater next to him will have Kris increase the temperature entirely on their own.
  • At the Holidays' house, Noelle invites Kris over to her room to discuss how's she's been feeling after what happened yesterday. Eavesdropping as the SOUL reveals Kris apologized to her for anything disturbing the Player may have put her through, hiding the supernatural elements by claiming it was all just a bad prank and that Berdly would get better, before taking a thorn out of her hand. If her watch was taken and equipped onto Kris, she'll mention how they additionally apologized for stealing it before putting it back onto her wrist. They'll also quickly bolt out of the room with Noelle in tow if the SOUL barges in but takes too long to re-enter their body.
• My Master, Right or Wrong: The ending of Chapter 4 indicates that, regardless of their own morality or desires, Kris is working for their enigmatic benefactor(s) against their friends due to a promise they made to... someone. Even if it risks heralding the Roaring.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: It's implied that Kris dislikes the idea of Bratty dating Asriel. Both times they encounter her, "Go away" is among the dialogue tree options they can respond with, and Bratty will respond by thinking Kris's vitriol toward her is in response to her desire to date Asriel.
• Mysterious Past: They were adopted by the Dreemurrs at some point, but it is not yet known how and why they were separated from their human parents. It appears to have happened when Kris was too young to remember their birth parents, as they once asked Toriel and Asgore when their horns were going to grow in like the rest of their family.
• Naughty Is Good: Grew up playing pranks on other kids—especially Noelle, loves sticking things like moss and Ralsei's cotton training dummy into their mouth (if they aren't already busy indulging in sweets), are just as displeased with wearing dorky clothes to church as Susie, bypassed the parental blocks on mature television channels with Dess' help, always keeps a knife on their person (much to their embarassment when Susie points it out), and used to get in trouble for things like singing swears during carols or trying to flush a bath bomb down their house's toilet. They even used to wear a headband with red horns. But it's also mostly what you'd expect from a kid still hesitant on growing up, and it's this sort of adventurous nature that lends to Kris being the Fun Gang's leader. Then again, there's still the matter of their ties to the Knight and the contact on their phone, yet they still don't seem to thrilled about working for the latter.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: After Kris rips the SOUL out while at Noelle's house, they'll head to the kitchen to chug down a glass of milk with chocolate syrup added. While they've been known to shamble around on their own, their sluggish movements after pouring and drinking from a brown bottle makes it look like they're getting hammered. Given how much it's clear Kris hates being controlled by the SOUL, the reason for this is obvious.
• Never Gets Fat: Kris has an absolutely ravenous appetite for sweets, but is apparently active enough to be in excellent shape regardless.
• "No. Just… No" Reaction:
  • In Chapter 1, when looking at an anime review of Mew Mew Kissy Cutie 2 in the library (implicitly written by Alphys), they have the option to read it, with their choices being "Yes" and "No No No No No No No No No". Looking at it again in Chapter 2 won't even prompt the option to read it, instead saying a mere glance is enough to sap away much of their energy.
  • As Queen challenges the heroes to a boxing arcade game early on in Chapter 2, Ralsei will ask Kris if they're good at games if talked to. You can make Kris say "Gaming is my life" or "Gaming is not my life", and choosing the former will have Susie hear them say it with the most monotonous delivery they can muster (not that Ralsei notices). Making them say the latter just makes Queen promise not to enslave them due to their lack of enthusiasm.
  • In Chapter 3, if Ralsei asks Kris who they'd take to the Light World's festival, one of the answers the Player can pick is Berdly. We don't directly hear Kris's reaction if it's chosen, but Ralsei helpfully describes it to us:Ralsei: Umm, you don't have to repeat yourself so loudly, Kris.I - you don't have to repeat yourself, Kris.
  • After bringing the Dreemurr family's cactus to life and interacting with it in Chapter 3, its Light World description in Chapter 4 will change from "There's not much to say about it" to "It loves you, but mainly shows a sharp side", before adding there ought to be a word to describe such a thing. Examining it again makes the narration clarify—"A word you liked".
    • If you inspect the houseplant in Noelle's room in Chapter 4, the flavor text notes it's a Christmas cactus and was called "Krismas" the last time Kris saw it. Noelle then mentions how Berdly called it "Tsuntsun" right after. This prompts the next time you inspect the plant to instead say, "It's a cactus that apparently got poorly renamed at some point".
  • Attempting to play "Megalovania" on the piano in Chapter 4 the first time gets Kris run over by the Annoying Dog. Try again and Kris abruptly wrests control from the player and slam their hands on the keys at the last note.
• Non-Human Non-Binary: Inverted. The only human in Hometown also happens to go by They/Them pronouns, though there are a number of monsters who do the same.
• Not Himself: Characters regularly remark on how Kris is acting different than usual, even though their usual behaviour already makes them an outsider. By Chapter 4, Susie's heart-to-heart with Noelle in Dess' room has the latter call Kris's more sociable behavior unlike them, while Susie (who only recently became their friend) says they seem completely normal.
• Not So Above It All: Though they're a quiet and moody teenager who's none too sociable, Kris is often surprisingly hammy and endearingly melodramatic.
  • Some of the narration describes Kris' perspective, often showing their exact thoughts as very snarky, irreverant, or bizarre.
  • Cutscenes where they're more in control show some expressiveness. They're willing to join Susie and Ralsei in dramatically posing once they start their next adventure in the Cyber World, and when confronted with the heinousness of being too dang short to fight Queen in an arcade game, they dramatically collapse in shame.
  • Let them interact with their room's communication horn at Queen's mansion, and they'll shove their entire head inside and honk. Which turns out to be the same thing Susie was doing in her room. Checking it again makes Kris consider tossing the nearby bathbombs down the horn, before noting there probably isn't enough time to do that.
  • One ACT you can do during the fight against Queen in Chapter 2 is to propose a toast to make her drop her shield. While Susie and Ralsei will make awkward proposals, Kris's toast is described as memorable and charming enough for Queen to genuinely appreciate it. Susie comments that they didn't have to make the delivery that emotional.
  • After Berdly gets freed, Queen pulls a "Look Behind You" gag to get away. It works to the point where even Kris decides to look back. Considering how cutscenes grant them a little more control over their body, they're so fooled (or even intentionally playing along with the ruse) that they briefly override the SOUL's control to react.
  • On some of Tenna's quiz segments, Kris will nudge the cursor to select answers that players probably wouldn't know. Most notably, one of the questions on Tenna's quiz segments asks what Kris's favorite food is, and Kris will immediately move the cursor to select "pie" instead of "chocolate" while disguising their movement with a cough. It seems they're so intent about getting this right that they'll briefly yank control back to get the point across.
  • Their animations during Tenna's minigames and final boss fight are often quite flashy and expressive, suggesting they're genuinely having fun. For instance, during the 'Dodge the Fire' cooking game, Kris plays up their temporary chef costume for all it's worth by twirling dramatically around whenever the player jumps, like a chef twirling around pizza dough.
• Not So Stoic: Kris's sprite never changes, but other characters will note changes in Kris's expression and say it aloud for the player to take note of things that get through their stoic façade;
  • Monster Kid describes them as looking annoyed when they badmouth Susie, and drinking hot chocolate from the diner, something Kris and Asriel once did regularly, causes their throat to tighten as they're Trying Not to Cry thinking about Asriel. One of the search results Queen uses to construct Kris's room in her mansion is also "college summer vacation when", again showing they clearly miss Asriel.
  • A few scenes in Chapter 2 have Kris expressing frustration at the SOUL's control over them, such as when they witness the fate of Spamton NEO and when they try to play the piano again but are still unable to do it properly.
  • Their encounters with Spamton stand out for being the first time Kris seems outright terrified by a boss; they repeatedly back away from him during their first meeting, the "Exit" prompts in his shop menu are replaced with "ESCAPE" and "RUN AWAY", and on the way back from the fight with Spamton NEO, Susie notices they're covered in goosebumps. When asked if they're okay on the way back, a Yes results in Susie noting how shaken and unconvincing that was, and a No results in them screaming it. Be it that Spamton affected them that badly or they saw the parallels to Spamton's desire for freedom from his strings and their own relationship as the puppet for the SOUL or the voices on their phone, the encounter left them shaken. Conversely, when it seems putting the Loaded Disc in the NEO body didn't do anything, interacting with it has Kris shake and hit the body. The narration ends with a note that it still didn't do anything, implying Kris was so invested in Spamton's quest that they performed Percussive Maintenance to try to make it work.
  • If you take the Weird Route of Chapter 2, after Noelle freezes Berdly with Snow Grave and wanders off, Kris reunites with the party, where Ralsei and Susie notice that Kris looks shaken and stressed out — having made clear that they and you are different entities, it seems that Kris is trying to process what you made them do to Noelle and what she, in turn, did to their classmate and is not happy about it.
  • When Kris finds they're too short to reach the control panel of Queen's arcade machine in Chapter 2, they'll dramatically fall to the floor in complete anguish.
  • If you find and pick up the moss in the corner next to the dumpster in Chapter 2, Noelle will note with confusion how Kris seems to have a very pleased expression on their face.
  • In the corridor with the force field tied to two pressure plates, if you step off of the button while Noelle is crossing the field, she'll get back at Kris by doing the same trick. However, when Noelle asks how Kris felt in response, she notes how hurt they look.
  • During the Sword Route, while playing the secret video game in the S-rank room in Chapter 3, Kris will noticeably look away from the screen and turn pale when you force their avatar to kill Susie and Ralsei's avatars to progress.
  • When Kris's avatar "HERO_SWORD" leaves the game and enters the room following the boss fight against the Shadow Mantle's Holder, Kris drops their controller and instantly leaps back in fear. Should the player continue to slowly approach them as HERO_SWORD, Kris will walk further away from the 8-bit figure to keep their distance. Swinging the avatar's sword at Kris causes them to jump so far back they fall.
    • Afterwards, the player can try to make HERO_SWORD stab Susie from behind when she comes to check up on Kris, and Kris will panic and yank Susie out of the way. The shock and speed at which they had to act leaves them hyperventilating with gritted teeth, in one of the few times we get to see their expression visibly change.
  • If you pick Berdly when Ralsei asks them who they're going to the Festival with, Kris is so offended by this that they apparently start yelling in disbelief.
  • When Susie and Kris drink the "church juice", Kris looks visibly delighted as they dunk their drinks onto each other's mouths.
  • Kris struggled to keep their laughter in as Susie failed to do a rock toss on Onion-san's lake.
  • The option to have Susie rematch the Hammer of Justice forgoes being a simple "yes" and instead has Kris cheer for her to win.
  • When Kris and Susie come home to a drunk Toriel and Sans dancing in the living room, Kris looks away, clearly uncomfortable. And in The Stinger of Chapter 4, they look genuinely restless over Toriel and Sans dancing to loud music in the living room, even shoving a pillow over their head to try and block it out. They only stop flailing about when they hear Susie's voice (on the normal route) or Carol's voice on the phone (on the Weird Route).
  • In Chapter 4, if the player continues the Weird Route by forcing Kris to put the ThornRing back on Noelle and make her realize that Chapter 2's events really happened, Kris will respond by entering the bathroom, ripping the SOUL out, tossing it in the trash can, and then proceed to beat the ever loving shit out of it.
  • In the same scenario, during Kris's conversation with Noelle, if the SOUL isn't fast enough to possess Kris, they will notice it and flee the room with Noelle. While their eyes are still hidden, they are clenching their teeth in a terrified manner as they run out of the room.
  • In Chapter 4, as Kris is trying to swat at the SOUL in Dess' closet without alerting Noelle and Susie just outside, when they overhear Susie saying they're "really really good at flirting", they momentarily pause and blush. Later, when Susie needs a sharp object and Kris immediately pulls out a knife, she'll ask Kris if they always happen to be carrying a knife on their person, causing them to turn away and blush sheepishly.
  • Once more in Chapter 4, if you take long enough in the closet, the conversation closes with Noelle implying that while she does consider Kris a genuine friend now, back when they became friends she felt like she was obligated to like and hang out with Kris because their parents were friends and didn't particularly care for them at first. This upsets Kris enough that they slump over in visible heartbreak and stop making attempts to prevent the SOUL from alerting the girls to their presence.
  • And again in Chapter 4's Weird Route, if you try to make Kris say a prayer for Noelle at her candle stand in the church, Kris kicks the stand hard to enough to make it shake to Susie's shock, infuriated at the SOUL having the audacity to force Kris to pray for Noelle's well-being after what the SOUL's been doing to her.
  • While looking for the Old Man they met in the Dark Sanctuary, Susie rummages through Alvin's desk and pulls out a glass case filled with dust. Kris is faster to realize this "dust" is a monster's remains and noticeably steps back in shock.
  • If Kris uses the Shadow Crystal in certain rooms, they can see visions through the glass. Trying this when looking at a prophecy mural after Susie learns how the prophecy ends has Kris see nothing different.... then shake the crystal and try again, to no avail. They seem practically desperate for proof that the ending can be changed.
• Oblivious Adoption: As a child, Kris seemed to believe that their horns would grow in when they got older, and wore a hairband with horns to look more like their adopted parents and brother.
• Obsessed with Food: Kris is remarked as a glutton, eating all of Toriel's pie, always eager to drink Father Alvin's fruit juice at church, and tempted to keep chocolates to themself. Their mother is concerned enough to warn Sans to keep chocolate away from them.
• Oh, Crap!: If you are on a Weird Route and don't possess Kris while they're talking to Noelle in Chapter 4, they'll eventually notice, grab Noelle's hand and book it out of the room in a panic in a (successful) attempt to prevent you from ruining their chance at undoing the route. If you do, they rush to try and stop Noelle from Saying Too Much and causing the SOUL to break both of them again.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • In the Hometown epilogue of Chapter 1, many of the town's residents will note that Kris isn't acting as creepy as they normally are. If that isn't enough to tip you off that something is wrong, what happens after the epilogue certainly will.
  • Encounters with Spamton clearly put fear into Kris. Upon first meeting him, they back up instinctively (and against the player's input) when he suddenly punches his garbage bin. Spamton NEO leaves Kris on the verge of a panic attack: They uncontrollably back away from him when he appears in his new body, have goosebumps after the fight, and when asked if they're okay, Kris does all they can to possibly convey to Ralsei and Susie that they're very much not.
  • Ironically, the roles seem to briefly invert the one time Spamton can be asked about the Knight. Spamton enthusiastically starts asking if Kris knew something, abruptly stops before specifying what, apologizes profusely in a panic, and won't mention the subject ever again. The most likely cause was simply Kris non-verbally demanding Spamton shut up, possibly even drawing their weapon to threaten him.
  • During the Weird Route of Chapter 4, the player has a chance to sneak up on Kris and resume control of their body. Take long enough and Kris will see the SOUL coming, grab Noelle, and run away with a frightened expression, showing how seriously they take the SOUL's threat to her.
• Out-of-Character Alert:
  • Subverted and Played for Laughs at one point in Chapter 2. After Noelle gets chased by more Maice in the second Annoying Mouse Room, she asks why they keep going after her, prompting a dialogue option. Select "Unknown", and Kris will robotically say the word (instead of "I don't know") while standing very still. Noelle isn't disturbed, because this is apparently rather in-character for them.
  • An eerily similar case is Played for Drama on the Weird Route. When meeting Berdly after your rampage through the city, he fearfully questions what Kris and Noelle have been doing together. You get two dialogue options. Picking "I'm protecting her from you!" aborts the route, as you allow Kris to be themself again. Picking "Proceed" has them literally say the word aloud and nothing else, judging by Berdly's confused and horrified reaction.
  • Also during the Weird Route, this time in Chapter 4. Kris is usually not one for communication with the SOUL, likely out of spite for its control over them. However, they drop this demeanor very briefly during the scene in Noelle's bedroom: while in the vents and given the option between "Proceed" and "Please don't", selecting the latter aborts the route with Noelle noting Kris said nothing. This implies they were using the text box to silently plead with the SOUL not to retake its hold over her. Also during this scene, Kris may notice the SOUL and run out of the room with Noelle, but not without a terrified expression on their face, a stark contrast from their usually stonefaced fear.

P-Z

• Parents Know Their Children: Played with; despite how people are quick to comment on how Ralsei looks a lot like Kris's older brother, Asriel, Kris is very quick to point out any and all differences in their appearances... even if it gets to the point of annoyance.
• The Pen Is Mightier: So far, Kris's weapons in the Dark World consist of what appear as stationeries in the Light World. For example, the Wood Blade manifesting from a pencil and the Bounce Blade from an eraser. This is especially notable given it's revealed that they have a personal knife that they keep on their person at all times, yet it doesn't appear as a weapon in the Dark World.
• Percussive Therapy: If the player is on the Weird Route in Chapter 4 and selects the option for Kris to pray for Noelle, they will instead kick the prayer candle stand hard enough to nearly break the entire collection of candles.
• Perverse Sexual Lust: The narration repeatedly makes mention that the book Asriel indefinitely borrowed from the library has an "immodestly dressed" purple dragon on the front. Susie is a purple dragon, whom Kris gets several Ship Tease moments with, possibly implying that said dishabille illustration has had an influence on Kris's tastes. There's also the advert boasting "monsters 4 humans in your area" that Poppups generate to tempt them into clicking.
• Pet the Dog: While Kris is a loner with their own priorities (including an agenda involving another entity that's potentially against the Player's own interests), the Player's guidance can have them do a few charitable acts they normally wouldn't, and they have a few moments where they help comfort others of their own accord.
  • In Chapter 1, if you manage to appear in a certain room in the Forest (it's RNG based) with an unknown person behind a tree who gives you an egg, you can give the egg to Asgore in the epilogue, giving the poor guy something to eat other than the single pickle in his fridge.
  • In the Hometown epilogue for Chapter 1, Kris can meet Onion-san at the waters if they stay in the same spot for long enough. The Player is then given the options to insult Onion-san or to befriend and name them.
  • During Chapter 2's epilogue, Officer Undyne might ask Kris to deliver a note and box of chocolates to their teacher Alphys. Inspecting the box in Kris's inventory shows they're definitely tempted to eat the whole thing by themself, and they'll do so without a shred of guilt if prompted. The Player can instead have Kris hand them over as asked (but as Chapter 4 shows, Kris can't help but sneak at least one chocolate beforehand). Alternatively, if Susie's in the party when using the Box of Chocolates, she'll demand that they share it, which Kris obliges.
  • If you try to tell Ralsei that he shouldn't have his own opinions and desires in Chapter 4, Kris will subvert your command by yawning to cover up your words and get the opposite message across. Should you attempt to comfort him during his breakdown later, Kris will hug him of their own volition. Especially notable since earlier chapters have suggested, if not outright stated, that Kris was wary of Ralsei and did not particularly like him that much.
• Player and Protagonist Integration: A unique case on the scale. The player does not directly control Kris but rather the SOUL, which in turn possesses Kris and grants the player control over them. In general, while the player can direct Kris to take certain actions, the way that said actions are carried out are up to Kris and they can choose to enact commands in ways that subvert the player's intentions. In specific moments, Kris will forcibly tear the SOUL from their body to go off and carry out their own agenda, with the player unable to see or interact with anything outside of the SOUL's vicinity.
• Player Character: Or "vessel", as the voice at the beginning calls them. They are their own person distinct from the player controlling them, and this is made violently clear in multiple stingers.
• Poor Communication Kills: At no point does Kris attempt to actually communicate with the SOUL, even indirectly via something like leaving notes. While there's certainly likely reasons such as Kris being barely social to begin with, clearly disliking the entire arrangement, and having their own agenda that the SOUL would likely not accept, as well as this does mean that even a well-intentioned SOUL can end up being Innocently Insensitive since the SOUL is left working with limited, often indirect/implied, information about its host and their feelings. With the Weird Route it's much worse, as despite being able to speak and move without the SOUL inside them, Kris doesn't alert Ralsei or Susie (who doesn't even know that Berdly is in a coma) about the SOUL's downright malevolent behavior or even any sort of indirect warning. Instead Kris only tells Noelle enough to calm her down and convince her it was all a prank and a dream (with their explanations still leaving her with lingering questions) while removing the thorn from her...which unless the SOUL is carelessly slow or voluntarily aborts the route, horribly backfires and gives it the perfect opportunity to effectively complete its corruption of Noelle.
• The Prankster: Stories from the townsfolk show Kris was one in their younger days.
  • At one point, one of the students mentions that Kris would scare people by pretending their hand was cut off and use ketchup for fake blood. Likewise, Rudy will reminisce that Noelle used to be afraid of humans hiding under the bed, while stating it wasn't nice of Kris to do that.
  • If you constantly make the Maice in Cyber City's puzzles scurry underneath Noelle and cause her to jump back in fright over and over, she'll eventually think they're doing it on purpose and compare it to the time they replaced her eggnog with mayonnaise. You can also repeatedly step off the switch in a later forcefield puzzle before Noelle can cross, and they'll even return the banter she throws their way about needing a dog treat to sit still. As long as you don't endanger Noelle by getting her too closely to the electricity, Kris won't seem sad or upset.
  • While looking at Carol's many heart-shaped pillows around her house in Chapter 4, Noelle mentions that Kris used said pillows to pretend to rip their heart out to scare her when they were young.
• Properly Paranoid: Evidently, Kris habitually deletes their phone's call history, so the SOUL wouldn't know who they have been contacting.
• Psychic Block Defense: Kris can sometimes defy the SOUL's control by subverting their inputs or refusing to offer a visual of something they don't want to be seen. In one of those multiple scenes where Ralsei and Kris seem to be trying to move the SOUL's attention towards Susie, attempting to pry into Kris's mind for information about their ties with the Knight causes them to desperately imagine something ridiculous about their classmates instead.
• Psycho Knife Nut: Kris has a fascination with knives that recalls the Fallen Child's association with the Worn Dagger/Real Knife back in Undertale. In the Light World, they can gleefully manifest a dagger on the palm of their hand, but only ever do so for mysterious tasks while free from the SOUL's control. However, we only know Kris to have used the knife to make Dark Worlds, not attempted to harm anyone. In a Bait-and-Switch moment, Toriel complains about Kris eating an entire butterscotch pie and specifies that the kitchen knife on the plate is theirs. It's further Played for Laughs with mentions of Kris viewing videos of how to make gimmick knives like one made of jelly, and is later embarrassed to reveal they keep a knife on them at all times to Susie.
• Punny Name: Besides the Significant Anagram, a "kris" can also be a type of dagger.
• Rage Breaking Point: Kris evidently doesn't trust the SOUL much to begin with, but they get increasingly violent during Chapter 4 as the SOUL tries to uncover the mysteries of Dess and the shelter. Kris tosses objects and tries whacking the SOUL with a hockey stick to force the player into submission. This can come to a head in the Weird Route, if the SOUL continues to torment Noelle by making Kris force themself onto the girl to make her wear the ThornRing again, complete with a Smash Cut to black that's contrasted with red fracturing cracks that sprout from where the ThornRing was applied to. Kris is outraged by this and dunks the SOUL into a trash can before kicking the shit out of it.
• Raised by Wolves: They're the only human in a town of monsters, raised by a family of anthropomorphic goats. If you go upstairs in the library, you can find a book on "How to care for humans"… that the game implies must have been frequently borrowed by Toriel.
• Rapid-Fire "No!": When looking at an anime review of Mew Mew Kissy Cutie 2 in the library (implicitly written by Alphys), they have the option to read it, with their choices being "Yes" and "No No No No No No No No No".
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Their eyes are usually hidden by their bangs, but the few times they're seen show that they're always glowing bright red. This is even visible when Kris and Susie jump into the Dark World in Chapter 2, suggesting that they're naturally like that.
• Red Herring: The end of Chapter 2 makes one suspect the Knight may just be Kris; Queen never actually saw the Knight, but Kris secretly makes a Dark World with a knife/sword in the exact manner she describes. Chapter 3 further teases this by keeping the Knight an unseen and secret collaborator of Tenna's; when alone with Kris in the Sword Quest, Tenna lets it slip they were following Kris' instruction. When Tenna is defeated and switches sides, one may think his fear of disobeying the Knight is just an act to keeps Kris' identity secret... but then "The Roaring Knight appeared." After disproving Kris and the Knight as the same individual, it's much more heavily implied that they're co-conspirators.
• Role Swap AU: Besides being a Composite Character of Frisk and Chara, one major trait of Flowey/Asriel is instead held by their sibling in this version—both lack their own soul, even if Kris' circumstances for such are unknown and likely very different.
• Scrubbing Off the Trauma: Invoked. Some characters note how infamous Kris is for handwashing. When Kris sneaks out of the bathroom after being told to wash their hands, Toriel tells Susie that it's normal for Kris to spend a lot of time washing their hands. The Man Behind the Tree encounter in Chapter 4 sheds some light on this: Kris mysteriously enters a space that resembles a hospital lobby, and then is asked to sketch something as a form of art therapy and ends up smudging graphite all over their hands by trying to draw the mysterious tree where something happened. If you make Kris wash their hands on the nearby sink, the narration states that they cannot wash all the graphite on thier hands away. In general, it is heavily implied that Kris is haunted by and harboring a lot of guilt for something that happened in their past that they're desperately trying to avoid reminders of, and that this guilt is potentially related to why Kris seems to be working in tandem with the Knight in the first place.
• Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: It's implied this is the true nature of Kris's relationship with the SOUL, containing it within their body as a means of constraining the freedom and options the SOUL can utilise to interact with the world and the characters, since Kris evidently cannot destroy the SOUL directly. However, this has the cost of letting the SOUL somewhat control Kris's movements and dialogue options whilst in command. This is shown most evidently when Kris and the SOUL have a "battle" with each other to give/prevent Susie from getting the guitar, as Kris can evidently restore control to themselves with effort, but only resorts to putting the SOUL back in their body once Susie's successfully gotten the guitar, trying to hide or beat back the SOUL otherwise whilst avoid Susie and Noelle's attention.
• Secret-Keeper: An optional sequence in Chapter 4 heavily implies Kris knows who the Knight is, or at the very least, knows what lies behind their armor. At one point in the Dark Sanctuary, you're given the option to have Kris imagine what the Knight is up to. This will have them imagine the Knight taking out their helmet, causing Kris to panic and quickly picture Jockington and Temmie doing things instead.
• Self-Harm: Removing the SOUL from their body appears to have an adverse effect on them, but that doesn't stop them from doing it in order to take actions unseen and unopposed. This comes to a head in Chapter 4. In the normal route, Kris bats at the SOUL with a hockey stick in order to keep it away from Dess' guitar, which causes damage to Kris as well. And on the Weird Route, things get even worse: after the SOUL forces the Thorn Ring back on Noelle, Kris will throw it into a garbage can and kick it repeatedly until Asgore interrupts them, leaving them with 10 HP. Later on, if the player prompts them to say they'll never play piano again, they will bite into their own hand hard enough to make it bleed.
  • It can be argued that the act of accepting the SOUL in the first place, (which was quite possibly a goal of the conspiracy Kris is a part of) taking it back even after seeing what it did to Noelle, working with the Knight and following the instructions that come from the phone are a sign of a self-destructive prerogative.
• Shipper on Deck: Kris has the option to push certain characters closer together.
  • In Chapter 2, they can reassure Noelle that Susie would want to go on the ferris wheel with her.
  • In Chapter 3, after Lanino and Elnina have broken up, the two are very sad about it. Kris can talk to them individually and say "Your forecast is love," which helps them get back together.
• Ship Tease: With all three of the other main characters.
  • Special note given to Noelle, with whom it is implied that Kris once had a much closer relationship with.
    • In Chapter 2 while not outwardly stated, it's implied Noelle feels something for Kris (though it's ambiguous how Kris feels about her), but it's vague as to whether or not she consciously realizes it. In Chapter 4 Noelle will make a number of flustered and conflicted comments about her relationship with Kris while trying to talk to Susie, including recounting a Ferris Wheel ride they had together when they were kids. Kris will blush while overhearing said story, as well as while listening to Susie and Noelle discussing things like Noelle being included alongside Susie in learning how to flirt from them.
    • The Weird Route is focused on an extremely toxic and abusive forced relationship between Kris and Noelle, as the route involves the player making decisions that cause the two of them freeze and slaughter their way across Cyber City. The relationship is clearly framed as one that is a dark mockery of a stock adventure fantasy romance, with a magical ring being the key item of the relationship. Noelle's feelings of pain are further sealed by the literal Ring of Thorns the player forces on her at their Point of No Return, completing the game's twisted version of an Unholy Matrimony. The way Kris and Noelle react to this relationship is eye-opening for aspects of how they percieve each other; it tells us that Noelle was latching onto their rekindling relationship in Cyber City enough to stumble into agreeing to anything "Kris" asked her to do until it reached disastrous places, and that Kris cares enough about Noelle to become increasingly obstructive to the SOUL controlling their body, and incredibly distressed and enraged at what it is making them do.
  • There are slight implications that Kris views Susie as their only true friend. While the Noelle Tea grants them 70 HP and the Ralsei Tea gives 60 HP, the Susie Tea is the only one that restores 120 HP for them, the same value that Ralsei gets from the Fun Gang's flavors and what Susie gets from everyone's teas. Kris will also sport unhappy expressions if the player forces them to badmouth Susie in front of Noelle or Gerson. After the Spamton NEO fight, if you make Kris lie and tell Susie and Ralsei they're okay, Ralsei attempts to comfort them by letting them wear his scarf, only to be rejected in favor of Kris wanting to wear Susie's jacket instead, and wanting to go to the Festival with Susie is also the only dialogue option that Kris will genuinely say without a surprised tone when asked by Susie who they would go with. Bonus points that Susie is a dragon monster, and their older brother Asriel also had a thing for dragons. In Chapter 4, Kris will blush out of embarassmentnote The sprite's name is "spr_noellehouse_dess_kris_cringe" according to the files when Susie talks about how they're weirdly good at flirting, as well as when she holds their knife with them together.
  • Ralsei expresses his subservient nature as a Darkner towards Kris several times, thanks to being the first party member that will actually join Kris to teach them about the Dark World, and in Chapter 2 they outright have a borderline-romantic swan ride across Queen's acid pool. That being said, Kris themself seems to not return the feeling or at least distrusts Ralsei on some level at that point. The Character Teas indicate that Kris likes Ralsei's the least (as shown by it healing the least of all of them). By Chapters 3 and 4 however, Kris is shown to be warming up to Ralsei, flinching when his avatar is slain in a video game and later coughing to stop the player from being too mean to him through dialogue options. There is an unused table for the [CHARACTER] Tea present in Chapter 4 where, if Kris says "It's okay not to smile" to Ralsei, the Ralsei Tea changes its healing value toward Kris from 60 HP to 100 HP, solidifying Kris becoming much closer to Ralsei in that moment after comforting him and almost seeing him as close of a friend to them as Susie. While the number is still lower compared to the teas showing how both Susie and Ralsei feel toward Kris, and how Ralsei and Susie feel toward each other, it's a significant step up in their friendship.
• Significant Anagram: Kris is a partial anagram of Frisk and a complete anagram of "risk".
• Sleepy Head: Kris has a history of not waking up on time for school. They also have a history of sleeping through school, to the point where they're often the last to leave class.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: In the Dark World, Kris wears a sleeveless armor, but this doesn't stop them from getting the job done, may it be the pacifist or violent way.
• Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration: As much as Kris hides their emotions, perhaps more from the player/SOUL than anyone else, the game has a number of mechanics that give us hints.
  • Kris does not comment when using consumables like the others, but the amount healed is still higher for food they like, showing some Bizarre Taste in Food. By extension, the effects of the personal Tea in Chapter 2 show at that point Kris fully reciprocated Susie's friendship (120 both ways), was fairly estranged from Noelle (70 both ways; compared to 50 either way for Ralsei and Noelle, who'd barely interacted), and barely considered Ralsei more than a stranger (KrisTea heals Ralsei 120, but the reverse only 60). As said above, had the unused table for the [CHARACTER] Tea in Chapter 4 been implemented, following Kris saying to Ralsei that "It's okay not to smile" the Ralsei Tea would change to heal Kris for 100 HP instead of its original 60 HP, showing how much closer Kris has now become toward Ralsei and seeing him as a dear friend almost level with Susie and almost reciprocating Ralsei's own closeness felt toward Kris.
  • In Chapter 3, Kris does half damage to Tenna by default, presumably because they have some level of attachment to him. However, if the Sword Route sidequest is complete, Kris does triple damage to Tenna instead. It's not entirely clear why this applies to just Tenna, though the MANTLE game in that route encourages Kris to "become stronger". Tenna's altered dialogue (he brings up Kris wanting to "have fun", but apologetically cuts off a question it was leading to) may suggest he was Saying Too Much to the SOUL in the last segment of the game and Kris was more willing to force his silence.
  • Likewise, Kris does half damage against the Roaring Knight, and they alone are immune to the Swoon status condition (which permanently downs party members outside of revival items), strongly reinforcing that they have ties of some nature. However, their damage output doubles if either Susie or Ralsei are swooned, and quadruples if both are swooned, indicating that they genuinely value their friends who are fighting against the Knight, enough to stop holding back if they get hurt, and that their connection to the Knight is somewhat less than willing.
• The Smart One: Along with being the one who cooks up strategies on how to approach battles, Kris is the one who solves the puzzles during their adventures, Susie even has to follow Kris's lead on how to solve a puzzle required to open a cell Kris and Ralsei were imprisoned in. Even the highly-egotistical Berdly is willing to acknowledge their studiousness in school, suggesting that this isn't just the result of the SOUL's influence.
• Sneaking Snacks: Apparently does this often. Sans states that Toriel has to keep her chocolate locked up to prevent them from doing it. Chapter 2 begins with Kris having snuck out in the night and eaten the cinnamon-butterscotch pie Toriel was saving for the next day.
• The Soulless: The SOUL is all but stated to be an invader in Kris's body and one of the first things you can do in the Dark World is overwriting their save file, "as if it was never there at all". The first two chapters end with Kris pulling the SOUL out of their chest to do something without its interference, even as they look barely able to walk without it. A phone call Kris receives in Chapter 4 heavily implies that those without a soul cannot enter a Dark World.
• Soulless Bedroom: While Kris's side of the bedroom looks comfortable and well-furnished, it's also strangely devoid of personal belongings or decorations, as opposed to Asriel's side, which is covered in trophies and stickers.
• The Spock: The superego to Susie's id and Ralsei's ego. Kris rarely shows emotions of their own, and only when they do is it a sign something's plain wrong. They're also The Smart One and The Strategist of the team.
• The Stoic: Kris doesn't have any kind of "shocked" sprite, unlike Susie or Ralsei. Whatever Kris sees, they just take it in stride. It's implied that said stoicism is due to the SOUL's possession, as they are much more expressive in the moments when it is removed. Even when their character shines through more in Chapters 3 and 4, their mouth is still locked into a straight line unless it's forced out of it, whether it be due to external forces or to make a specific action make more sense, there being only one exception to the rule in Chapter 3, and even then it's through an obscure interaction.
• Stronger Than They Look: The fights against the Roaring Knight heavily implies that Kris is the most powerful of the Three Heroes, but restrains themself because of their Conflicting Loyalty: if the whole party is with them, Kris deals the least damage, but if one of their friends fall down, they will compensate for it, dealing more damage than even Susie on normal hits.
• Successful Sibling Syndrome: Kris's older brother, Asriel, is incredibly gifted; his walls are decorated with all the sports trophies and accolades he has earned throughout high school and he's now far from Hometown due to being enrolled in college. Trouble is, due to Kris's antisocial behaviour it's hard for people to not compare them to their more charming, sociable and skilled older brother. Despite this it doesn't seem like Kris holds much resentment towards their brother and even idolises him as much as the rest of the town.
• Super-Empowering: During the final battle against King, using Kris's ACT commands replaces them with stronger team combo moves. When used in tandem with their party members, the text states that Kris's SOUL is shining on the teammate they're empowering.
• Super-Reflexes: Kris's agility apparently isn't limited to the Dark World:
  • Susie once pitched an apple at their head, only for them to deflect it with a notebook and then snatch it out of the air.
  • In Chapter 4, they throw a hockey puck at the SOUL from underneath December Holiday's bed at high speed, incapacitating the SOUL and stopping the player from reaching the guitar with frightening precision. Earlier on, if the SOUL tries to go through the kitchen and leave out the door, Kris will throw a bottle to incapacitate them with the same speed and precision.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Kris is a lot like Frisk and Chara from Undertale, with a lean more toward Chara (straight down to the oft-missed detail of their bangs concealing their eyes).
• Sweet Tooth: It's implied by Toriel. When she announced to Kris that she's baked a cinnamon-butterscotch pie, she has to warn Kris not to immediately eat the entire pie. Also, Sans admits to Kris that Toriel told him whenever she buys chocolate, she has to lock it away so that Kris doesn't eat it all.
• Synchronization: Chapter 4 shows that any damage inflicted on the SOUL will apply to Kris's body. After they successfully snipe the SOUL out of the air with a thrown bottle or hockey puck, the HP value is shown to have decreased in the menu. If the Weird Route is being continued and the SOUL attempts to force Noelle to put the ThornRing on again, Kris will put it into a trash can and violently kick it multiple times, taking half its HP. In both cases, Kris can only take a few steps before tripping and falling over, but only after the SOUL reunites with their body.
• Take Our Word for It: Their face never changes, they rarely react to anything that happens in a way that is conveyed visually to the viewer, and they're essentially a Heroic Mime to the player, but their tone and expressions in certain situations can sometimes be alluded to via other people's reactions to them. For example, if Kris finds the moss behind the dumpster, Noelle notices they have a very pleased expression, or if you pick the "Perish" option when Queen asks the trio to join her, Susie will question why Kris said it so enthusiastically.
• Technical Pacifist: Despite being willing to smack their enemies around to force a retreat, they have a noted distaste for the idea of killing people.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: How much Kris and the SOUL's Symbiotic Possession can be described as "teamwork" is hard to say, since we don't how their situation came to be. But Kris is very hostile towards the SOUL even if the player takes the best possible actions, while the SOUL can potentially be very abusive towards Kris and is overriding their personality either way. Nevertheless, Kris needs the SOUL and always returns it to their body sooner or later, while the SOUL needs Kris as a vessel to meaningfully interact with the world of the game, and the pair can end up accomplishing some pretty great feats together (for a given definition of "together").
• Terse Talker: For display purposes, your dialogue options for Kris's are brief, but many are implied to be literally all Kris is saying. This is especially obvious in the case of single-word dialogue choices, where Kris literally just says the one word, which often results in the other party completely misunderstanding their query. Noelle's asides in Chapter 2 imply that this was Kris's usual way of speaking until the SOUL hijacked them.
• That Russian Squat Dance: They do this dance when dancing with the Sweet Cap'n Cakes and the Mikes. Also seen when Rouxls uses his Rules Card to force the party to generically ACT, in which the party defaults to their dances with the Sweet Cap'n Cakes crew.
• Token Human: Kris is the only human living in Hometown, something their peers occasionally remark about.
• Trademark Favorite Food:
  • Butterscotch-cinnamon pie. Despite their mother's warning against it, Kris eats an entire pie in The Stinger between Chapters 1 and 2. During Tenna's quiz asking what Kris's favorite food is, Kris will automatically move the cursor to "Pie", which ends up being the correct answer.
  • Chocolate. Toriel apparently has to lock up the house's supply of chocolate to keep Kris from eating all of it, the hot chocolate from the waitress at the QC's Diner is said to taste wonderful, and they get 80-90 HP from eating a Choco Diamond. Given how Kris's design combines elements of Frisk and Chara from Undertale, their love of chocolate may be a callback to the "No chocolate." comment when inspecting Asgore's fridge during the Genocide Route in that game. After ripping out the SOUL in Noelle's house in Chapter 4, the first thing they do is head to the kitchen to chug some chocolate milk.
  • Moss. Initially introduced as a one-off gag in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 establishes that Kris genuinely enjoys the taste of it, with Noelle pointing out how happy Kris looks when they come across a patch of the stuff in Cyber City. If they don't eat it immediately and come back with Susie, they'll eat it together, without any prompting from the player.
• Tranquil Fury: Kris will start actively sandbagging against the Roaring Knight, since they're working with in some way. However, they won't stop fighting if both of their friends are defeated and instead fight harder, without any visible change in attitude or demeanor.
• Trapped in Villainy: In the ending of Chapter 4, Kris is about to climb out their windowsill, wanting to tell Susie something important, but is stopped by the voice on the phone reminding them of their promise. It's clear by then that they do not follow along with said voice's plan out of agreement with it, and their attachment to Susie is beginning to conflict with their obligations.
• Trauma Button: It's implied in several places that Dess (December) Holiday and whatever happened to her, is one for them.
  • In Chapter 2, during Kris and Noelle's trip through the city, Noelle recounts to Kris how she lost a spelling bee by freezing up when asked to spell DECEMBER, as she is likewise troubled by the memory of Dess. While Kris doesn't get to express themselves much during this sequence, the fact they guessed the source of Noelle's own trauma reaction suggests that they sympathise with her problem, experiencing something similar.
  • In Chapter 3, inputting "1225" (for December 25th) into the gacha machine will allow Kris to enter it alone, taking them to a trippy area that looks like a maze but allows you to walk freely on the void, with the theme of "Lost Girl" playing on guitar. Following one of the paths will eventually bring Kris to a smaller gacha machine, which will drop "a small, dark triangle" coated in lacquer, only for it to slip through Kris's hand and them being unable to find it anymore...find their hand, that is. It's heavily implied that the object is a guitar pick, and the mere sight of it triggers Kris into remembering something about them failing to grab someone or something important, with the unclarity over everything for once not being deliberate obfuscation on Kris's part, but genuine trauma that they're desperately trying not to remember.
  • In Chapter 4, Kris makes the most blatant stance in opposition to the SOUL yet, when they tear it out just before it can fully read the code inside Dess's guitar, then violently subdues it inside an adjacent closet. It is implied that part of Kris's motives in violently attacking the SOUL throughout this sequence, apart from denying the player access to the Shelter, is that they despise the idea of touching or interacting with a cherished memento.
  • If you carry out the Weird Route all the way to Chapter 4, Noelle becomes this as well. When Susie tries to ask Kris what they were discussing with Noelle, the dialogue choice prompt that appears is empty and the scene freezes still with a pink tint, as if Kris themself froze out of not being able to parse what had just happened. Later on, if the player has Kris try to think about Noelle, the screen cuts to a flashback of a frightened Noelle whispering "thank you", with the only visual being a red dot on a black screen... then the whole screen suddenly turns red, and Susie worriedly tells Kris that they were hyperventilating.
• Troll: Kris loves giving Noelle a scare, has moments where they tease Susie, and of course enjoy messing with Berdly.
  • Should Susie be in the party while Kris uses the Tea flavored after her, they apparently spend time staring at her while drinking it, with Ralsei noting how they seem very into it. If you started a fresh new save file in Chapter 4 or didn't befriend Onion-san, the two can pass the time skipping stones across the pond before going to Noelle's house. Kris is barely able to hide their laughter when Susie messes up with her toss, and Susie lets them know.
  • On Tenna's second game board in Chapter 3, after Susie swaps the party's controllers, the trio comes across a Pippins-run shop that offers a Blue Ribbon or "Pizza Deodorant (For Nerds)". Though Kris can choose to make Susie's character wear either, Susie-as-Kris will urge Ralsei to put the deodorant on if you wait, then crack jokes about Kris's character huffing the smell. This would leave "Susie" grabbing the Blue Ribbon as the only option to progress, implied to be Kris's method of getting back at her own teasing.
  • Some of their extra creative ways to freak Noelle out include the following:
    • They once told Noelle that humans are known to live and hide underneath the beds of monsters, a funny inversion of the usual thing kids hear growing up. Kris then apparently took it a step further and actually hid underneath her bed at her house to catch her off-guard.
    • Noelle recounts Kris telling her that the ICE-E mascot was not only a real creature but also a cryptid that eats kids, prompting her to look it up on the library computers. She got over it, but mostly after Dess smacked Kris around with a wiffle bat to get them to admit it. A blog post of hers also recalls the time this same fear in ICE-E had her wary of a pizza box from the restaurant, which led to Dess burning it and the Dreemurr siblings promising to bury it. Before they did, Kris took the opportunity to use the box as a makeshift mask of the mascot to scare Noelle, which got Dess to smack them around again.
    • When they reunite with Susie and Ralsei in Cyber World and Noelle asks to tag along, Susie assumes Noelle's working for Queen thanks to their encounter on the ride earlier. Kris can either explain their truce or tell Susie that Noelle is indeed their enemy, and the latter choice makes Susie and Kris draw their weapons.
  • They tend to save the more meanspirited antics for Berdly:
    • His "Check" description in his second battle, where he thinks Kris is breaking their barely-agreed-upon truce to kidnap Noelle, tells you "He usually only gets this mad when you play games together." During the second spotlight puzzle segment in Queen's mansion (where the lights are technically shadows being cast according to the Dark World), there's an opportunity to further chip away at Berdly's cracking smug facade by shining the blue shadow that's in the shape of a bird on top of him. He immediately assumes this is them trying their best to mock him since they can't taunt online.
    • According to the pages on Noelle's blog during the Spamton Sweepstakes, Berdly was given instructions by a prank caller that led to him accidentally deleting his copy of "Minecrap" off his computer, which led to the same prank caller telling him how to get it back and them making plans to play on the same server. This anonymous prankster is all but stated to be Kris.
  • If you abort the Weird Route by sparing Berdly during the fight in Cyber City, this aspect of their character is present enough for Noelle to suggest that the reason "Kris" went that far — gaslighting her, forcing her to kill their enemies, and even manipulating her emotions to be an Extreme Doormat for them — was all just for the sake of making Berdly angry.
• The Troublemaker: Ever since they were a kid, Kris has kept a penchant for mischief and pranks memorable enough for plenty of people around Home Town to recount, from all the different kinds of ways they'd try to scare their childhood friend Noelle to the time they dropped a bathbomb into their house's only toilet to see what would happen. This part of their personality is what helps them adapt to adventuring through Dark Worlds and why they end up having so much fun with Susie.
  • Their room in Queen's mansion customized after their search history indicates after the bathbomb incident, they tried to look up ways to make improvised bathbombs, presumably to continue pulling similar stunts. The flavor text briefly mentions they would've liked to shove these things down the "communication horn" if stopping Queen didn't limit their time.
  • Kris is described as frequently cheating at games just for the fun of it; The Seven Flying Aces were monochrome photocopies of cards they colored with stationery tools, and if made to answer "yes" when asked if they like to gamble by a Pippins in the Chapter 3 S-Rank room, the Pippins doesn't buy it and flat out says Kris just likes to cheat.
  • Monster Kid is one of the churchgoers you can talk to about the Shelter in Chapter 4, who will either ask if Kris is "taming" Susie or complain about the time Susie scared them and Snowy outside the Shelter if you initiated the scene back in Chapter 2. The only two ways Kris can respond are to mention the Shelter (which is done in a vague way to prevent letting Monster Kid give you any useful info), or to tell them "Susie will not be tamed".
  • Later into Chapter 4, Gerson asks Kris where they intend on going when the path splits. They can choose to follow where Susie went, prompting Gerson to ask if they're keeping an eye out for her and if it's for any reason. They can answer that it's to keep Susie out of trouble or so they can increase the amount of trouble with her, and Kris will only barely mumble out the former choice if you make them say it.
• Uniqueness Decay: Discussed. In Chapter 1, they're the only one who can ACT. In Chapter 2, when Susie questions why she needs Kris to tell her what to do before she is able to do it, Ralsei responds that ACTing is Kris's unique trait. This is shortly before she learns a weaker version of the ACT command and forces Ralsei to do the same. On the other hand, Kris has a "certain power" that makes their friends' abilities stronger, and it's only through Kris's ACT command that the team can coordinate more complex plans in battle.
• Unique Protagonist Asset: They are the only human in the story, so they're the only character with the characteristic SOULs of humans, and the shining light only they can see allows them to save and reload events. They're also the only character with the dedicated ACT command, Susie and Ralsei having a MAGIC command in its place. While the MAGIC commands gets some similar functions starting in Chapter 2, Kris still has the most variety, and is the only one who can initiate double or triple ACTs.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Noelle in Chapter 2. She wistfully recounts how they used to be much closer as young children only to grow apart when they became teenagers. Even so, she seems to be incredibly close to Kris, to the point of considering them The Confidant in spite of Kris's more creepy behavior. It is implied that they may feel the same, though Kris's permanent status as The Stoic makes things difficult to tell. They become much more intimate in the Weird Route, though it is portrayed scarily similar to an abusive relationship where the player forces Kris and Noelle into a situation neither want.
• Un-Sorcerer: They're a regular human who lives in a monster town. While monsters in Deltarune can only use magic in a Dark World, Kris cannot even then. This was a disappointment to Kris, as going by Catti’s dialogue and their internet browsing history in Chapter 2, they still really wants to use magic. In gameplay, Magic is a Dump Stat to them, allowing them to wear Magic-decreasing items (e.g., TennaTie) without penalty.
• Useless Useful Spell: During Chapter 1's Final Boss, talking to King with Kris will replace Kris's "Talk" ACT with "Courage", which increases the entire party's defence for 25% TP… for only one turn. Since you can end King's fight early by FIGHTing without impacting the story, you're better off saving that TP for Susie's Red Buster.
• Vague Age: Kris is a teenager who is attending middle/high school, but their age is otherwise left unspecified, with a range of anywhere from 13 to a legal adult at 18 (Queen specifically says they aren't one yet). Toriel says that soon they will be going off to university, which suggests they are at least in high school. Depending on how much older Asriel is, Kris could even be in their final year of high school. This serves as yet another parallel with Frisk, who couldn't be mistaken for anything other than a very young child.
• Walking Spoiler: It's extremely difficult to discuss Kris in any way which doesn't give away the First-Episode Spoiler that the player isn't actually playing as them, but the SOUL possessing their body. This is even before getting into their true motives and relation to the villains, which are only gradually detailed out over the course of the game.
• What Would X Do?: Susie's on a Ferris wheel with Noelle and asks herself what Kris would do in this situation. The first option is "point and hearts come out", which is their generic animation for ACTs. The second is "eat moss".
• What You Are in the Dark: While Kris spends a lot of time sabotaging Susie and Ralsei's efforts behind their backs under the orders of someone connected to the Roaring Knight, if the former two are cut down by their dubious ally, rather than just give up then and there, they will stop sandbagging against it and fight for real until they're defeated themselves or force the Knight to stop holding back itself, demonstrating that Kris does very much care for their friends.
• Willfully Weak: Subtly implied to be the case in regards to confronting Tenna and the Roaring Knight. Unlike the climatic battles with Arc Villain(s) King, Queen, and the Titan, Kris won't have the SOUL unlock neither Susie's Red Buster nor Ralsei's Dual Heal against them.
  • Beyond disabling special ACT's, Tenna's case is more zigzagged. Normally, attacking Tenna with Kris will reduce the damage they deal to him by half compared to Susie and Ralsei, similar to the fight with the Roaring Knight. However, if the Sword route was completed, the damage of Kris' attacks will instead be tripled against Tenna, likely due to the lingering effects that the MANTLE game left on them or the heightened awareness that Tenna could let slip something he shouldn't.
  • At the end of Chapter 3, for whatever reason, they only hit less than half as hard compared to the rest of the party if Susie and Ralsei are up, only increasing their damage output if their allies are knocked down. They also cannot be SWOONED, unlike Susie and Ralsei, suggesting the Knight might also be holding back against them, and they are the only party member the Knight doesn't make sure to cut down despite how, unless following an exceptionally abnormal strategy, Susie will be the primary reason the Knight is defeated, which is even reflected in the cutscene after beating it. In Chapter 4, even if you somehow manage to reach them when you first see them in the Dark Sanctuary, they don't attack them even when Susie is begging them to. Certain implications make it possible that these events are from Kris deliberately sabotaging their party's attempts to resist the Knight, but their quiet nature and secretive role in the ongoing conspiracy makes it hard to know for sure.
• "X" Makes Anything Cool: When fighting Spamton NEO in the Weird Route, Kris can use the ACT "X-Slash", which are two critical slashes in the shape of an X.
• Zombie Gait: Kris can yank the SOUL out of their body and become free to do as they please, but in that state, they tend to shamble and drag themself around while hunched over in pain or exhaustion. In Chapter 4, they're able to walk normally when in view of other characters, and they're also much faster even when hunched over.

"DO YOU WANNA BE A [Heart] ON A [Chain] YOUR WHOLE LIFE!?"