Learning to Love Berdly - A Deltarune Character Analysis

[Music] burnley is a divisive character in deltarune those who love him adore the little bluebird whether it's for his humorous nerdy quips over-the-top antics or relatability those who despise him find him grating annoying and some would even go as far as to call him creepy or an incel the harsher criticism seem to stem from reading into things that aren't there personal projection and a lot of bad things so today i'd like to take a step back and analyze birdley's character based on the game itself and show some appreciation for this gamer dork when we first meet birdley in chapter one he comes across as the snooty and pretentious student he berates chris for their academic performance poor punctuality and gets noticeably upset when noel suggests that chris joins their group project while noel tries reassuring her father that he's not that bad thus far we've only seen birdly at his most grating he's very proud of his academic performance and looks down on chris seeing them as the lesser student and making it known at every chance he gets and for the past few years that was all we had to go off of nerdy pretentious with a chip on his shoulder who was mean to our main characters given that this initial impression has had so much time to ruminate it's easy to see why people came into the chapter 2 with a pre-existing navigative perception so what does chapter 2 bring to the table once again we see birdley's pretentiousness on full display when noelle volunteers to read burnley cuts her off leaping onto the table and diving right in to spare her the humiliation right away this shows that burnley assumes a lot about noel without letting her speak for herself albeit with a desire to protect her it also shows an eagerness to perform well in school and impress his peers this will be important later this pattern continues when we see birdly within the cyber world he arrives with a dramatic flourish embellishing his intelligence and sharing his desire to create a world for the intellectual he speaks down on those he dreams protozoans but ironically shows a lack of critical thinking by taking everything queen says at face value even when rolsey points out the likelihood of her manipulating him it's the first of many cracks in his smart kid exterior but additionally we see a slightly softer side in how birdley treats chris admitting that he saw potential in them and even inviting them to join his side whereas before birdly treated chris rather cruelly we see that he might actually care about them more than he lets on even then any sincerity to it remains messed with the familiar snobbery he assumes chris is jealous of them desperate to get to the same academic heights as himself and noel and constantly puts down their friendship with susie he assumes that chris wants to use susie's brawn to take him down it's a very self-serving interpretation of events showcasing birdley's desire to feel important even then when he offers again and again throughout the fight for chris to join his side it suggests that he sincerely means it how strongly he seems to value academic excellence it's fascinating that he's willing to put that aside and invite chris to join his cause when they're only the third best student i think a big part of this is the lack of social pressure here removed from his classmates barring chris and susie and removed from the library guests he has fewer eyes on him he can take a bigger risk by inviting chris to his side this too will be important later when we next see birdly it's after a brief encounter with both noel and queen while noel seeks to avoid queen's pursuit queen actively avoids birdly to the point where she hides in an alley the moment she hears his voice this stands in stark contrast to birdly himself who actively seeks queen out heaping her with praise this shows once again birdley's eagerness to impress he holds queen in high regard thus seeks her approval and her company the sad thing is this relationship is not reciprocal queen hides from birdly at every chant she gets when chris asks about queen and noel bridley immediately gets on the defensive making excuses about them waiting for him to play retro games if you look at his talk sprite after it seems that even he knows it's an excuse and sheds an insecure light on this little blue bird it might also explain his eagerness to form a truce with chris shortly after he wants to have friends he wants to feel important he may act like it's a temporary thing but it's very likely that he's starting to feel the loneliness setting in amidst the bright and fantastical world but here in this scene we also see that birdly isn't that bright before he brushed off queen's manipulation but here he outright believes her when she says that she's just passing cars he doesn't question it at all of course it's entirely possible that he believes it because doing so would hurt less than admitting queen is avoiding him by going with the idea that it's just nearby city racket that means queen isn't tucked away in the alley lying to him within earshot and so he trots off adamant the queen is just as eager to spend time with him when that's clearly not the case time and time again she complains to chris about birdly and time and time again bradley tries to wow her whether it's with her statue dedicated to their friendship or baking her a gamer's delight between this and is boasting about saving and defending noel we see more signs that this initial ego masks a deeply insecure teenager with poor social skills his insecurities expand beyond his craving for friends and importance but even to his body image is seen by the way he fantasizes about having nipples when you give him a gift he's genuinely surprised and more importantly happy which suggests that small gestures like this mean a lot to him and aren't commonplace he even stays with the party for that room even if it means spending time around susie a surprising twist for someone so prone to be raiding her there's even further evidence of this namely in the way he frames his relationship to noel initially one might think he's selfish for his claims that noel needs protection and that she's nursing feelings for him in a way that is a selfish mindset but it is one that also likely stems from an innate desire to be important to at least one person perhaps a part of him thinks there's an ulterior motive at play of course noel is nice to him because she has a crush on him it's not like people would be nice to him otherwise his heart is in the right place even if he goes about it in all the wrong ways in neutral and pacifist playthroughs he keeps talking for noel instead of letting her speak in contrast berkeley shows a genuine concern for her in the snow grave route picking up on noel's unusual behavior right away the way chris is pushing her forward and standing up for noel without any of his usual gloating this shows that his attachment to noel is more than for the sake of ego and that burnley really does want friends in a sense of belonging his fight brings another example with the wherewires whom he boasts are his friends they're easily dispatched however and when asked why he doesn't summon more he gets awkward and anxious boasting that they'll probably come back to him and they never do but if you want one of the most blatant examples of birdley's on full display look no further than the mouse puzzle when chris solves the puzzle he orders them to tell their friends that he solved it instead brushing it all off as a big fluke the idea that the third best student could solve a puzzle like this might and birdley's eyes threatened his own status in intelligence and without that what even is birdley burnley is at his most vulnerable in queen's mansion gone are all pretenses of queen working with him he's been cast aside and imprisoned just like chris and susie as well as in queen's clutches from the get-go he reacts nervously fearing that chris and susie will leave him behind there's more boasting about noel being his damsel in distress but i genuinely believe this is at least partially affront to mask his true fears of abandonment he cares about noel as well but at this point he's come to realize that queen never truly valued him the same way he valued her what's more in the puzzle rooms burnley doubles down on his boastful bravado claiming that the solutions to the puzzles are easy and that he has it in the bag without ever taking initiative when called out on it he stammers and struggles and once again shows discomfort when chris completes a puzzle before him makes excuses trial and error the caveman method and begs for chris to talk about the puzzle he solved earlier he even offers to do a puzzle alone with chris chris validation seems to matter a lot and it does fit with their earlier interactions along with the fact that they have apparently game together in the past but with susie's idea working it's the ultimate insult to his smart kid persona the facade finally cracks and birdley admits to his lack of intelligence he reveals the truth about his genius status namely he's only seen as the smart kid because noel struggled in a spelling bee and adults put him on a pedestal i think this greatly re-contextualizes birdly's earlier behaviors being a gifted child comes with certain expectations success in school being chief among them prior to the spelling bee bradley was a forgettable kid and even in the present that still lingers with characters like rudy and queen butchering his name oftentimes that intelligence leads to gifted kids being outcasts they might be seen as unapproachable in noel's case she maintained a sweet friendly personality and generally gets along with everyone but she also has a loving family and many friends conversely birdly only has noel she's helped him every step of the way allowing him to maintain his status as number one student but that pedestal has come to define bernie he has to succeed he has to be the best he can't lower himself to the level of idiots and slappers he can't appear too dumb or too weak everyone expects greatness from him over time this likely caused birdley's pretentious mask to form and despite his desire for friends and validation pushed people away he's not a bad kid in fact i'd argue he's one of the more relatable characters in deltarune despite his ego and occasionally weird comments he's not malicious he just has poor social skills in fact by dropping the ego he's finally able to connect with susie over a shared love of the dragonblazer series granted this leads to an incredibly awkward crush on his part but it also shows that once he stops acting so egotistical he can form connections he desperately craves from this point on he shows genuine compassion for the party and an eagerness to cooperate in order to save noel and stop queen he no longer craves the leading role chris will distract queen susie will help rescue noel in just a few short moments it's clear that he's already learning and growing the queen takes control of him soon after at the end of their battle he fights for control once again in the violent neutral path he even forcibly removes the cable at the risk of injuring himself while in pacifist he openly praises the effort of his friends even admits to his own bravado and promises to help chris later i promise he keeps as he rallies the recruited darkness of cyber world to reconstruct the thrash machine allowing the gang to take on giga queen in one final climactic battle even after everything is said and done he's still willing to give chris and susie a chance in the light world bring his experiences in the dream with him into the future unless you were mean and frozen to death anyway unfortunately despite all the effort toby put into burglary's character and his arc a lot of people have a very shallow read on this bird they see his nerdy gamer guy persona and start projecting a lot of negative stereotypes onto him as i alluded to earlier in the video people have gone out of their way to claim things like birdly is an incel who uses women birdly would be homophobic or transphomic birdly is so annoying he deserves to die it's one thing to dislike a character and i can see plenty of reasons why people wouldn't care for him particularly with his crushing on susie but a lot of these complaints are either unfounded or hyperbolic case in point really has no qualms with girl gamers that already sets him apart from your stereotypical toxic gamer guy he also respects chris's pronouns a lot better than a majority of the fandom and i know by saying that a lot of people are probably going to be mad but hey he also assumes chris has a crush on him at one point and gently lets them down he doesn't protest regardless of chris's gender identity really i'd say his greatest crimes if you can call them that are being socially awkward a bit high and mighty and acting as though susie is going to fall into his arms like a visual novel character even then his advances are played for laughs and while he puckers up he never forces the kiss on her behind trying to hint that he wants it and he's a weird awkward teenager sometimes teens behave in ways that are stupid and careless that hardly makes him the devil but ultimately i hope this analysis has helped you understand birdly on a greater level if you have any thoughts from the bluebird feel free to leave a comment below a like would also be a big help in the ever menacing youtube algorithm i do have plans to tackle other characters from deltarune undertale and other media in the future as well as uploading more music and content from my undertale webcomic and rooted fate a huge huge thank you for rainy d to providing a lot of the footage throughout the video and to my amazing patreon supporters if you'd like to support what i do and get cool perks feel free to check out the link on screen or in the description and help a lot as i'm trying to transition out of dead-end jobs and make content creation more of a full-time thing at any rate see you next time [Music] you

Channel: Dorked

Views: 149,770

Keywords: deltarune, berdly, deltarune berdly, berdly deltarune, character analysis, toby fox, susie, susie deltarune, deltarune susie, kris, kris deltarune, deltarune kris, kris dreemurr, queen, deltarune queen, queen deltarune, noelle, noelle holiday, noelle deltarune, video essay

Id: KueHgAZcV00

Length: 12min 43sec (763 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 21 2021