Noelle Holiday

Character
Name:	Noelle Holiday
Occupation:	High school student
Relationships:	Rudy Holiday (father), December "Dess" Holiday (sister), Susie (crush), Kris (classmate), Berdly (study partner), the Player (bad influence - Snowgrave route)
Fandom:	Deltarune
Other:
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Noelle Holiday is character from Deltarune who is an NPC in Chapter 1 and becomes a party member in Chapter 2. She is also mentioned in dialogue from the Undertale Alarm Clock.

Canon Overview

In Deltarune

Noelle is one of the other high school kids in Alphys' class. Although she is already paired with Berdly for the group project, she offers to ask Alphys if Kris can join them in a group of three when no one is available to become their partner. She is also the one who proposes that the supply closet be checked for extra chalk when Alphys has none left, and tries to volunteer to go get some with Susie as an excuse to get to know her better, though this falls through when Alphys sends Kris with her instead.

When Kris returns to Hometown after their adventure in the dark world, Noelle can be found visiting her sick father Rudy in the hospital complaining about her group project and listening to his romantic advice on how to approach Susie. She can be found again later loitering on the street outside of the locked gates, realizing that she has forgotten her key and cannot get home. Fearing that her mother will be unhappy if Noelle bothers her at work, she says that she plans to stay the night at Catti's house. While she is intimidated by Susie like the rest of her classmates, Noelle does not hate her, and in fact has a crush on her; she takes the opportunity to ask Kris about what Susie is actually like. She also expresses concern over Kris' unusually energetic and talkative behavior while under the player's control.

In the game's second chapter, Noelle is sucked into Queen's Cyber World together with Berdly, where the Queen captures her and plans to make Noelle into a pseudo-Knight to create more Dark Fountains. When the party splits up, Noelle temporarily joins Kris' party, going on an adventure with them, reinforcing her friendship with them and overcoming her fear of mice. She also gets a chance to speak with her crush Susie and become closer to her. During the chapter it is revealed that like Kris, Noelle wishes to return to the more idyllic times of her childhood and misses her absent sister Dess. She is told by Susie that the events of the Dark World are all a dream and believes this. Towards the end of the chapter, Queen reveals that her motivation for trying to expand the Dark World is to make Noelle happy, the contents of Noelle's "strange, sad" Internet searches made Queen want to help her.

There is a hidden, alternate route in chapter 2 wherein the player grooms Noelle to become a violent fighter, much like the events of Undertale's No Mercy route; this ends with the player having Noelle murder Berdly. After returning to the light world, Noelle realizes that Kris is under the control of some frightening entity.

Noelle seems to be on good terms with all of her classmates and is a member of the track team with Jockington. She has known Kris for a long time due to their fathers' friendship, and often helps them with their homework. She is close with her father and plays video games together with him. He describes her as sweet, kind, and smart, but helpless and skittish, freezing at the slightest sign of trouble. Rudy also reveals that Noelle has a bad relationship with her mother, and that he worries because he is unable to protect Noelle from his wife while he's hospitalized.

Noelle has been on the receiving end of Kris' pranks multiple times. Despite being easily frightened, Noelle is a fan of horror media, finding it comforting that horror stories are fake.

As Noelle is a reindeer, various aspects of her and her family's appearances and lifestyle are Christmas puns or jokes.

In Undertale

While Noelle never appears in Undertale, Asgore's section of the Undertale Alarm Clock winter sample dialogue confirms her existence in the Undertale world. Asgore describes her family as having lived in Snowdin, and Noelle's father Rudy as having already passed away. Noelle and her sister Dess are both mentioned to be alive and well post-Undertale, and from Asgore's description (shy and sweet-faced) Undertale Noelle's temperament seems similar to her Deltarune counterpart. Whether she is in the same age group as Frisk and Suzy or whether she is older (and if so, how much older) remains unclear.

There is difficult-to-obtain dialogue from Sans in the Xbox version of the game mentioning her, but so few players have gotten it that Toby revealed it during the pre-show to the Undertale 6th anniversary livestream of Deltarune chapter 1.

Fandom

The hidden route of chapter 2 where the player grooms Noelle has been dubbed the Snowgrave Route by players, after the spell she uses to kill Berdly. Some have noted that Noelle's theme color on the menu being yellow, associated with the soul virtue of justice in Undertale, is likely meant as a pun on this route ("just ice").

One popular headcanon for Noelle is that she is a trans girl, based on the fact that her antlers are referred to by other characters (such as Sans) as a noteworthy characteristic. While some fans argue against this with the fact that in real life both male and female reindeer have antlers, others provide the counterargument that male and female reindeer do not have antlers at the same time of the year, and that Noelle and Rudy both having antlers at the same time in-game should not be possible if both are meant to be cis.

Fan Theories

Noelle's inclusion on a page of early development art posted by Toby leads some fans to theorize or hope that Noelle would eventually join the party in the full release of the game.

This line of speculation increased in intensity when Toby unveiled video previews of two separate versions of a song tentatively designated as Noelle's theme on Twitter, one of which depicts a back view of Noelle's sprite with a dark world color scheme, wearing a white dress and black garters. Due to the title of the first track, popular predictions included that Noelle would wander into the dark world and require rescuing, and/or that her arc might explore her inner turmoil via making her an antagonist or boss like Susie before her. Fans also enjoyed imagining what sort of class she will have if she joins the party, with popular guesses being a Final Fantasy White Mage-style healer/spellcaster or some form of melee fighter to contrast with her meek personality.

Noelle fans' wildest dreams were granted when she became a party member for segments of Chapter 2, and served as one of the chapter's focal characters.

Hints in the segment of this chapter where Noelle is a party member have led to fan interest in her home life, and especially the current whereabouts of her older sister Dess, who has been mentioned many times but has not yet appeared. Noelle's dialogue at the end-of-chapter walkaround where she wishes she could heal in real life, as well as the calendar in Noelle's room of Queen's castle listing every day as 12/25 and the segment in Berdly's flashback where Noelle fails to spell "December" (Dess' full name) at the spelling bee in their childhood, have led many to believe that Dess is either dead or (as she has no grave) has disappeared under tragic or mysterious circumstances. Some question whether Dess' fate has anything to do with Asgore's dismissal from the police force or his and Toriel's divorce.

As her inner monologue is depicted in the Snowgrave Route, showing her unease and trust in the player's directions as well as her repressing memories of killing NPCs and being frightened into destroying puzzles, some players believe that her mindset is a parallel to how Chara is affected by the player's instructions in Undertale's No Mercy route.

Based on the description of Hometown's mayor, many fans theorize that she may be Noelle's mother.

WELCOME TO THE CITY, the BGM for the section of gameplay where Noelle is a party member, quotes the bridge of 74, a song Toby composed for his friend Itoki Hana, about a damsel in distress who has a secret. In light of Noelle's character arc in both routes of chapter 2, fans have begun to draw parallels between her and the character in the song.

The SPAMTON SWEEPSTAKES event's hidden viral previews for Deltarune Chapter 3 mostly take the form of LiveJournal-style blog posts by Noelle, which show glimpses into her relationships with Dess, Kris, Susie, Berdly, and Jockington, and invite further speculation from fans.

Common Pairings

• Susie/Noelle (Suselle)
• Kris/Noelle (Kriselle)
• Kris/Susie/Noelle (Kruselle)
• Ralsei/Kris/Susie/Noelle (Kruseille)

Wank

Susie/Noelle vs Susie/Kris is the fandom's first ship war; fans who ship Susie and Noelle tend to go out of their way to decry the rival ship or attack fans who ship it out of the belief or hope that Susie/Noelle will be endgame, and that therefore pairing Susie with someone else is "stealing" representation from lesbians. This wank also involves a significant amount of anti-nonbinary transphobia, as anti-shippers imply that a F/NB pairing is "basically straight" or "less queer" because the characters' genders are different.

Fanworks

Fanfic

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

• worn things - Feral Phoenix

Fanart

• Wearing the girlfriend's jacket~ B) - renrink (Kruselle)
• ノエルちゃん(闇の世界の姿)　戦闘スタイルとか - Andou Cocoa
• Lost ⬛︎⬛︎⬛︎l - Gyunyu
• Deltarune -Ferris wheel - cluniies (Suselle)
• Snowgrave. // DELTARUNE SPOILERS - ayveehearts
• give her WEAPONS - lylikers
• lost girl - time_stables
• remember december? - jsheios
• ここのノエちゃんギャン可愛… - Crescendo
• noelle - Luaudrey

Meta

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

• What if the Echo Flower conversation in Undertale is between Noelle and Dess? - acerikus

Archives and Fannish Links

• Noelle Holiday tag on AO3