Queen (Deltarune)
| Character | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Queen |
| Occupation: | Dictator |
| Relationships: | Lancer (adopted son), Berdly (minion), Noelle Holiday (minion candidate/adoptee), Ralsei (landlord) |
| Fandom: | Deltarune |
| Other: | |
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| Needs Less Canon: This article includes too much canon information for the amount of fannish content given. Please add fannish context or remove unneeded trivia. Although a brief overview of canon is welcome, the focus of every page should be about the fandom; canon details are important if they can be associated with a particular fannish activity, fanwork, or fannish event. See What Fanlore is not for more information. |
Queen is a major character in Chapter 2 of Deltarune.
Canon Overview
Queen is the antagonist of the Cyber World. She is a dictator with an iron grasp on the area, which is portrayed as both sinister (as she uses wires to forcibly transform Plugboys into Werewires and have them fight the party) and also comedic, with her being served by muscular waitstaff who karate chop things for her entertainment. Her hobbies including drinking lime green battery acid from a wine glass, playing PVP arcade fighting games as well as mobile games, and zooming around in her floating chair.
Queen's goal is to capture the Lightners, particularly Noelle Holiday, to have them become her minions. She theorizes that any Lightner can use the power of determination to create Dark Fountains, not just the Roaring Knight; therefore, she plans to have Noelle (and if not her, Kris, Susie, or Berdly) continue to create Dark Fountains until Cyber World engulfs the entire planet. She is particularly fixated on Noelle and acts very saccharine towards her, often referring to her as "Noelle Honey Sweetie Gravy", but also suggests roboticizing Noelle's face on multiple occasions.
Much comedy is derived from Queen finding Berdly unbearably annoying, and in the gameplay sequence where Noelle joins the party there are a number of humorous scenes wherein Noelle attempts to hide from Queen to escape capture, but then Queen herself hides to avoid Berdly. Because she is a computer and depends on face recognition technology to know who people are, Noelle can hide from her easily by placing a box over her head, leading to even more comedy. During one of these sequences, she is the first to tell Noelle (not realizing that it's her) that she wants Noelle as a minion not because she thinks Noelle would be a pushover to recruit, but because she believes Noelle is strong.
Late into the chapter, it's revealed that Queen's world domination plan is actually motivated by her compassion and concern for the Lightners, particularly Noelle, whose "strange, sad" browser searches made Queen want to help her. Queen intends to surround all the Lightners she acquires with things they like based on personal data Internet algorithms and browser searches have gathered on them to ensure their eternal happiness and safety.
Her struggle with the party culminates in an over-the-top giant robot punchout session, but when Queen learns from Ralsei that an overabundance of Dark Fountains is foretold to destroy the world in the Roaring, she stands down immediately. After the chapter, she moves to Ralsei's kingdom with any other recruited Cyber World Darkners. She expresses excitement at getting to be Kris' "wacky roommate" and has scenes interacting with the King of Spades and with Lancer.
In a Snowgrave route, Queen stops antagonizing the party at all and abandons her plan to recruit Noelle altogether out of concern for her well-being. Her reaction to learning of the Roaring is the same as in a standard playthrough, but in Ralsei's kingdom she will be found still worrying about Noelle rather than interacting with Lancer and the King.
Queen speaks in title case, much like Homestuck's Kanaya Maryam.
Fandom
As Queen is mentioned offhand by Jevil if the player defeats him by fighting, prior to Chapter 2's release she was often theorized to be a more antagonistic villain like the King of Spades. Some wondered if she would be the next bonus boss or if she could be the full game's true villain. This led to some surprise over her actual role and characterization in Chapter 2.
Queen is popular for her over-the-top demeanor and for seeming more affable and reasonable as an antagonist than the King of Spades before her. However, other fans point to small NPC interactions with Plugboys as accurate social commentary for how dictatorship with an unpredictable ruler negatively affects everyone, even if people believe themselves to be safe because they support the dictator.[1]
Fans of regular asset contributor/dev team member Gigi DG and their other works such as the hiatused comic Cucumber Quest immediately noted that Queen's design and the tone of her comedic appearances was very similar to some of DG's creations and the tone of the artist's own jokes. Gigi DG themself became frustrated with this behavior and expressed wishes that fans would tone it down via their informal twitter:
it's ok if a certain character in dr ch2 reminds you of my sense of humor but i'd really like it if the comparisons stopped there. thanksGigi DG, @godkingclown on Twitter. Sep 24, 2021[2]
Bilingual fans have praised[3] the quality of Queen's localization, which phrases her dialogue in HTML syntax and localizes her face display with various Japanese Extremely Online-isms, such as the English "lol" and "lmao"'s rough cultural equivalents "www" and "草"[note 1]
Fan Theories
| Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples. |
Fanworks
Fanfic
| Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples. |
Fanart
- I didn't do any concept art for #DeltaruneChapter2 but I DID draw this a year ago - taxiderby
- im a little obsessed with them - mieI128
- obsessed with the queen from deltarune cause i can never guess what she's about to say next - naomistares
- like girldad like son - valdotpng
- hey queen did you know that um. i love you - duskquil
- obsessed with her a little (a lot) - POPPYR0CKZ
- I'll Krump With You Darling Honey Sweetie Gravy - Mr. Ryan.
- She’s #BASED #girldad - mcnuggyy
- Q5U4EX7YY2E9N - cupcakeshakesnake
Meta
| Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples. |
Archives and Fannish Links
- Queen (Deltarune)-tagged works on AO3
Notes
- ^ "www" is an abbreviation of 笑 ("wara"); this kanji is often appended to the end of a sentence in parentheses to indicate laughter. Each w represents one 笑, hence the long strings of w's one may find when perusing Japanese sites like Nico Nico Douga or 2channel, or looking at Japanese SNS posts. www is further abbreviated as "草生える" ("kusa haeru", lit. "grass will grow"/colloq. "that's hilarious") or simply "草" because a long enough string of w's resembles a field of grass.
References
- ^ one of the most understated jokes in Deltarune 2 is how in the room right after the music shop you meet a Plugboy who’s all “well all my friends have been turned into Werewires but i’ll be fine cuz im on the Queen’s side lol,” and then at the very end of that room you find this - sugaryscorpion via Twitter, 24 September 2021 (retrieved 28 September 2021)
- ^ it's ok if a certain character in dr ch2 reminds you of my sense of humor but i'd really like it if the comparisons stopped there. thanks; Gigi DG/lowercase g via Twitter, 24 September 2021 (retrieved 28 September 2021)
- ^ The translation for Queen in the JP version of Deltarune ch2 is amazing. The words in her portraits change to Japanese equivalents, her “speech pattern” changes to HTML comment block formatting, and all of her dialogue is strictly written in katakana or kanji, no hiragana - Medi via Twitter, 24 September 2021 (retrieved 28 September 2021)