Sandbox / Deltarune: Berdly

Deltarune Main Character Index
The Three Heroes (Kris, Susie)
Darkners: Card Kingdom (Card Castle Royalty) | Cyber World (Queen, Spamton)
Lightners (Noelle, Berdly)
Other Characters

Berdly

"Ah, Kris. Late again, I see."

^{Click here to see his apperance in the Dark World} "That's LORD Berdly to you simpletons!!"

A blue anthropomorphic bird. The (self-proclaimed) smartest guy in class, he's quite smug about his intelligence. In Chapter 2, he winds up in Cyber World with Noelle and starts serving Queen, becoming the secondary antagonist against the Three Heroes.

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A-H

• Abhorrent Admirer: Despite being much more willing to do her bidding than Noelle, Queen can't stand him, even when he sings her praises. She constantly tries to ditch or get rid of him, and his smug, condescending attitude is Played for Laughs when it annoys Queen to no end. It’s also downplayed in regards to Susie and possibly Noelle: they tolerate him enough (Noelle actually considers him a friend) but they sometimes find him annoying and like each other much more than they like him (while Berdly develops a crush on Susie and it’s possible he had one on Noelle too, even if he claims he just pretended to reciprocate her supposed feelings towards him).
• Academic Alpha Bitch: Rejects Kris as a project partner, because he thinks they're not smart enough to get him an A, and afterward actively sabotages Noelle's attempt to let Kris into the group by interrupting her when she tries to talk to Alphys.
• All Just a Dream: At the end of Chapter 2, Berdly is convinced that his adventure in the Cyber World was just a dream. not a character trait
• All Love Is Unrequited: Hilariously, he believes this to be the case with Noelle, whom he's thoroughly convinced is attracted to him despite he himself not having feelings for her. She doesn't either, as she's more interested in Susie... whom he also has a crush on. Noelle, understandably, has a Freak Out when she learns this.
• Always Second Best:
  • To Noelle in studying, although he acts like he's this to Noelle, the only time he bested her was when she froze up trying to spell "December" in a spelling bee contest. From there, Noelle started being somewhat of a school tutor for him and allowed him to claim all the credit as his own genius. In truth, he's actually quite dumb and very incapable of doing good academic effort by himself, unable to solve the puzzles in the Cyber World, with even Susie coming up with an idea to solve a puzzle that had left Berdly utterly stumped.
  • To Kris in gaming, considering he never brags about being a better gamer to Kris despite his smug attitude, and one of his check info states he gets mad at Kris when he plays games together with them.
  • To Asriel in everything; Asriel is smart enough to have various medals in his room, good enough at gaming to face Kris with a knock-off controller, volunteering, and not even a single person in Hometown dislikes him.
• Amazon Chaser: He eventually develops a crush on Susie. When Noelle finds out, she shakes him silly.
• And Then What?: Lampshaded. He's dead set on being known across town as an academic prodigy, using Noelle's help while she lets him take the reputation of being number one in their class. However, Berdly fears being unable to live up to others' expectations without her help, especially when he keeps considering the strong possibility that they'll go their separate ways at some point. And Berdly admits that he has no idea what he'd do without Noelle's help.
• Apology Gift: After Queen's defeat, Noelle and Susie mull the idea of spreading the Dark World over and conclude that it's the right thing to do. Berdly concurs and decides to use the last of his strength to make the next Fountain as his "real" apology. Ralsei admonishes them before he can do it.
• Ascended Extra: Went from a minor character in Chapter 1 to the secondary antagonist of Chapter 2.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: His Dark World appearance is a Whole Costume Reference to Falco and has a lot in common with the dog-fighting pheasant, being an arrogant loudmouth who's overly competitive even with his own "teammates" but ultimately demonstrates he's a good person deep down. At one point, he even complains about wavedashing.
• Beware the Silly Ones:
  • Despite how comically insufferable he tends to be, his two boss fights do show he's a very capable fighter in his own right in the Dark World.
  • While it doesn't quite end well, during the Weird Route, judging from his dialogue before the fight, and his attack patterns getting significantly more difficult to avoid, and especially contrasting his usual personality and attacks, it's clear that if Berdly can tell something is seriously wrong, he'll do all he can to put a stop to it.
• Big Bad Wannabe: He believes himself to have formed a Big Bad Duumvirate with Queen, who has trouble even pretending to respect him. Once the gloves come off from Queen, she shows that she could have gotten rid of him any time she felt like it.
• Big Damn Heroes: The heroes become heavily outmatched once Queen mans her giant robot form, and when they're knocked off the platform, Berdly dives in on his rollercoaster, carrying all the Darkners you befriended leading up to this point. He uses his old statue as the base for the proceeding components to the Combining Mecha, giving the party the form they need to fight Queen on even footing.
• Big Ego, Hidden Depths: It turns out he's well aware he's not as smart as he proclaims he is, and that the fear of losing his spot atop the class utterly terrifies him.
• Big "NO!": He lets one out when he learns that Queen is a mobile gamer.
• Blow You Away: Uses wind-based magic in the Dark World, most prominently to blow mini tornadoes at you.
  Noelle: He hit me in the face with a tornado.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Queen brainwashes Berdly as a weapon for her boss battle like a Werewire.
• Break the Haughty: In Chapter 2, courtesy of Kris completing a sequences of puzzles that have Berdly himself stumped (and Susie offering the correct solution for the last one as a finishing blow). When Susie calls him out on how he's always lorded his supposed intellect over others, only to turn out to have Feet of Clay, Berdly folds and admits he's never been a prodigy.
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Almost literally. In the fight against Queen where she has him Reforged into a Minion, if you don't loosen the cable enough (or defeated him with violence in either of the previous two encounters before this), he'll rip it off by himself at the end through sheer Heroic Willpower, at the cost of electrocuting his right arm. This carries over into the Light World; although the burns aren't there, his arm will be paralyzed.
• Bully Turned Buddy: By the end of Chapter 2, after the fountain has been sealed, Susie excuses their presence, claiming they accepted after Noelle invited them over to study earlier. Even when Berdly is still convinced that it was All Just a Dream, he stops his usual mocking of Kris and Susie to actually welcome the idea of another study session with them.
• Butt-Monkey: He suffers a good amount of comical punishment and humiliation throughout chapter 2 and can end up either with a paralyzed arm if not helped out properly on a normal run or killed by Noelle in the Weird route.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Despite being convinced that Susie is as head over heels for him as he is for her, Berdly never confesses his love for her at a volume loud enough for her to actually hear.
  Berdly: (Only a kiss from a beautiful gamer girl can save me now)...
  Susie: Berdly... [Screen slowly fades to pink]
  Susie: [Screen cuts back to normal] What? Like, get you're like, losing consciousness and stuff, but, Could you speak up?
  Berdly: [Visibly flustered] Umm, aha, s-sorry, suddenly I... I... I'm feeling a bit better!
• Character Development: Even after being convinced that it was All Just a Dream after Kris sealed the fountain, he decides that he could at least try studying with Kris and Susie. It's subtle, but it's there. Should his arm be paralyzed, he also compliments Noelle for always helping him out when she picks up his books.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Supporting character in Chapter 1 turned major character in Chapter 2.
• Climax Boss: Of the Snowgrave route. He is the last opponent faced before the player is permanently locked into the route, and defeating him marks the point where Noelle goes from killing random Darkners on Kris' behalf to killing one of her own friends. probably not a character trait
• Condescending Compassion: Berdly isn't openly smug to Noelle like most people and tries to look out for her, but does not respect her opinion or listen to her. On more than one occasion, Berdly has called her weak and helpless without him. This is especially condescending since Berdly wouldn't be atop the class if it weren't for Noelle.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: On the Weird Route, Berdly ends up being frozen solid by the fatal SnowGrave spell, a fate that carries over to his unresponsiveness in the Light World. not a character trait
• Declarative Finger: An as-of-yet-unused◊ sprite depicts Berdly in this pose, with a book open in his other hand. Given Berdly's pseudo-intellectual personality, this is likely meant to be him posturing.
• Delusions of Eloquence: He often speaks quite verbosely, even deriding Kris and Susie as "protozoans", but in the end, he's reliant on studying with Noelle to do well.
• The Dragon: To Queen throughout Chapter 2, although she very much wishes that wasn't the case. While he does eventually pull a Heel–Face Turn, he's temporarily forced into being her ally once again during her boss battle, but he manages to break out of it.
• Dragon-in-Chief: Ultimately subverted. Berdly is more antagonistic towards the Three Heroes (especially Kris) throughout Chapter 2 thanks to Queen's Affably Evil status and truce with Kris. However, while Berdly is more antagonistic, Queen is the bigger threat, pulling an Eviler than Thou on him by imprisoning and then brainwashing him.
• Drunk with Power: After winning a spelling bee against Noelle, he became obsessed with the reputation of being smart. Unfortunately, he's not that smart on his own, so he tries to keep Noelle close to him so that she can help him study to maintain his status as "the smart kid". Even then, he only won because they were both asked to spell the word "December", which hit a Trauma Button for Noelle and prevented her from speaking.
• Dual Boss: He fights alongside Queen in her first boss battle, albeit while under her control.
• Dumb Muscle: Perhaps even more than Susie when in the Dark World. He's pretty strong in the Dark World and is even more difficult than Susie and Lancer's Dual Boss fight, but he isn't inherently intelligent, having to have Noelle with him to appear smart, and has very, very poor common sense.
• Dumb Is Good: Parodied. After Susie and Lancer tell him that he shouldn't be so hard on himself and should stop worrying about keeping up academic appearances, he's immensely relieved to know he'll be accepted even if he's "dumb". They try to say that's not what they meant and that nobody's perfect, but Berdly's interpretation of this makes him double down to "fight for the side of ignorance".
  Susie: [After the Ferris Wheel ride with Noelle] It's fine!!! Berdly's gonna help!! We're allies!!
  Berdly: Yes!! Don't worry, Noelle!! I'm stupid now!!
  Susie: (He's good!!!)
• Egopolis: His main motivation to join Queen's side in Chapter 2 is to build a utopia called "Smartopia", where the smart rule over others.
• Entertainingly Wrong:
  • When he encounters Kris and Noelle, he recognizes how forced Noelle feels about their situation with serving Queen. Noelle almost expresses relief that he actually understands her, but he then claims it's because Kris kidnapped her and forced her to do their bidding, in disbelief that the two had made a truce of their own. Cue him initiating a battle to "save" Noelle from Kris.
  • During the attempt to rescue her, he feels the need to apologize to Noelle — not just because of how rude he's been, but because he believes the only reason she helps him so much is because she has a crush on him, and now needs to let her down for leading her on. Then he braces for her reaction to what he says next... because she shouldn't be jealous since he now has a crush on Susie. Noelle freaks out for different reasons.
  • After breaking free from Queen's wire, he recognizes that Susie has serious concern for Noelle, and interprets it as a sign that she's romantically interested... in him.
• Entitled to Have You: Both played straight in a platonic sense and subverted in a romantic one. Berdly thoughtlessly monopolizes Noelle's time to ensure his own academic success, but despite seeming delusions of Rescue Romance, he is not attracted to her.
• Everyone Has Standards: Even though he doesn't exactly treat Noelle very well, Berdly drops his smug attitude and expresses outright concern for Noelle's well-being upon noticing how Kris has been treating her on the Weird route. Should Kris persist and order Noelle to "proceed", Berdly will then go to attack Kris, and Kris only, to try and break Noelle free from their spell.
  Berdly: Th-that's it, Kris! I don't know what you're doing... But if you're hurting my friend Noelle... Then I have no choice but to stop you by force! Kris, ready yourself!!
• Evil Counterpart: Berdly can be considered this to Lancer: both are silly characters who are The Heavy to their respective chapters' antagonists (who both use them to threaten the heroes during their boss fights), are far less intelligent than they want to show, depend on a far more competent female character on their respective fields (Susie for Lancer and Noelle for Berdly), and help the heroes at the last second during the final boss battle. However, while Lancer actually was a Friendly Enemy and helped Susie having a Heel Realization, Berdly, despite his silliness, is a serious antagonist during physical battles and has to be given a lesson by Kris.
• False Friend: Downplayed. His friendship with Noelle is not entirely false, as he does show subtle signs he cares about her, but he does force her to partner with him on all projects just so he can get an A+ and keep up his reputation as The Smart Guy.
• Feet of Clay: For all his talk of being smarter than everyone else and acting like an Insufferable Genius, he's not really that smart. Kris solves puzzles that he struggled with, and when Susie of all people gets an idea that allows Kris to solve the last puzzle Berdly is present for, he finally breaks down and admits that Noelle was always the smart one.
• Feigning Intelligence: Played with. He is smart, just not as smart as he pretends to be. While Berdly was legitimately smart enough to be one of the final two contestants in a childhood spelling bee, he only won the bee because his opponent Noelle froze up and couldn't spell "December" since it hit a Trauma Button for her. But since Berdly gained praise from his peers from winning the spelling bee, Berdly became obsessed with maintaining his image as a prodigy and a genius. So in the present day, he gets Noelle's help in studying to maintain his position at the top of the class, portraying himself as more intelligent than he actually is. And as it turns out, he is terrible at things that require "outside-the-box" solutions, particularly puzzles... including one which even Susie is able to give Kris an idea on how to solve it.
• Flunky Boss: Downplayed. He summons a pair of Werewires to help him in his second fight, but doesn't summon more when they are defeated, insisting that the original ones will come back (even though sparing them frees them from their control).
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: While "friend" may be a bit of a stretch, nobody seems to be especially concerned that Berdly could very well be dead in the Weird route, Susie not questioning why he's the only one who never woke up from their shared experience. Noelle, though, is clearly in denial and there's a good chance that Kris realized Berdly died and stuffed him in the closet while "taking care" of the computer room's contents.
• Freudian Excuse: As revealed in Chapter 2, Berdly used to be such a complete nobody that no one even remembered his name. Then, during a spelling bee where he and Noelle were the final contestants, she froze up on the word "December", because something about the month of December hits her Trauma Button ("December" is implied to be the name of Noelle's older sister, and something happened to said sister). Berdly completed the word to win the spelling bee, and the ensuing praise from his peers was the first time Berdly had ever been acknowledged for his intelligence. As a result, Berdly got addicted to the prospect of being smarter than everyone else. However, he's only top of the class because he's gotten help studying from Noelle — "the real smart kid," in Berdly's own words. And with everyone's expectations for him so high by now, he's terrified of what'll happen when he and Noelle inevitably part ways someday. Queen was able to prey on that insecurity to make him do a Face–Heel Turn.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Thanks to his Insufferable Genius attitude, no one likes hanging out with him. The only person who might arguably be a real friend to him is Noelle, and even she gets fed up with his crap.
• Furry Reminder: After Susie and Noelle finish their Ferris Wheel Date Moment Berdly enters the scene by flying in, flapping his arms while doing so. He also mentions that, as a bird, he doesn't (currently) have nipples.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: During the second fight with him on the Snowgrave route, where he's trying to rescue Noelle from Kris' malign influence, his attacks will exclusively injure Kris and ignore Noelle. He doesn't turn on Noelle until Kris is incapacitated, Noelle makes it clear that she's still under their sway, and Berdly realizes he's going to have to defend himself with force. not a character trait
• Green-Eyed Monster:
  • With Noelle being the only friend he has, Berdly tends to be jealous of Kris for being Noelle's trusted childhood friend. He tries to stop Noelle from inviting them as a partner for their class project in Chapter 1, and when they meet at the roller coaster section of Chapter 2, he claims they must be jealous of him and Noelle for being at the top of the class. Later, he rescinds their so-called "truce" and fights both Kris and Noelle to get the latter over to his side, "for [her] own good". His Check description during this specific battle claims he only ever gets this mad "when you play games together".
  • He believes being the "smart kid" of the class is the only thing he has and always wants to keep the appearance up. Any time Kris solves puzzles, he angrily insists being smarter than them, first urging them to tell others that he was the one who solved the mouse puzzle. And while he knows and admits that Noelle's the real smart kid, wanting to make a "Smartopia" for her in appreciation, it still involved making them "number 1 and number 2".
  • In the Dark World, the sclera of his eyes are literally green.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Parodied. Just like Lancer's brief turn in Chapter 1, Berdly also "joins" the party very briefly for a single screen in which there are no enemy encounters, and then disappears immediately upon moving on to the next area. This also only happens if you choose to give the prize to him or if you have the original Starwalker in your inventory.
• Happy Place: He's a believer in the method of loci memorization strategy, and as such sometimes talks about retreating into his "mind palace", which he uses to help jog his memory during the mansion's spotlight puzzles. unsure
• The Heavy: While Queen doesn't wait in her mansion like King did, she's too busy making trucies with Kris to be considered an active antagonist. Despite his silliness, Berdly's jealousy and (interested) devotion towards Queen makes him the most dangerous antagonist of Chapter 2 before his Heel–Face Turn.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: In Chapter 1, he starts off as a face NPC, although he's a jerk about it. In Chapter 2, Berdly turns heel when he allies himself with Queen, turns semi-face after pairing up with the Three Heroes, and then turns full face after he admits that he's not that smart and vows to rescue Noelle.
• Heel Realization: Kris exposing Berdly as being not as smart as he claims to be has him give off his Freudian Excuse of winning the spelling bee. However, during this explanation, Berdly comes to see how badly he's been treating Noelle, causing him to pull a Heel–Face Turn and come up with a plan to save her.
• Heroic Second Wind: He's weakened after being wired up by Queen, so he doesn't join Kris and the others in the final fight against Queen... initially. When Queen breaks out her giant robot and all hope seems lost, Berdly returns, having gathered up all the people you've recruited and befriended along the way to join in the fight.
• Heroic Wannabe: Berdly tries to be Noelle's "knight in glow-in-the-dark armor", but mostly ends up endangering her and the people actually trying to help her. Queen even uses the threat of hurting Berdly to keep Noelle in line.
• Heroic Willpower: If you defeat Queen with violence, he manages to take off the mind-control plug by himself. Unfortunately, it damages his arm, which carries over to the Light World.
• Hidden Depths:
  • For as much of a blowhard as Berdly can be, he's genuinely courageous. In particular, on the Weird Route, he refuses to back down and flee even when something is disturbingly wrong with Kris and Noelle. On the regular route, he also manages to scare Queen off with the threat of a four-on-one fight even though he can barely stand and all Queen had to do was call his bluff. Despite still being drained, he also rushes to round up all the Darkners the heroes befriended to help them against Giga Queen.
  • There's also a few hints that he's more self-aware than he seems. In particular, he completely drops the Large Ham act on the Weird Route — and if you abort the route during the conversation immediately before fighting him, he asks himself what he was worrying about, since Kris is his friend, right before resuming his hammy act and dramatically challenging them to a fight, making it clear that his normal behavior isn't serious.
• High-Speed Battle: His first boss fight is this, with Queen summoning him after she realizes Noelle isn't willing to fight. The Pacifist outcome involves ramming your carts at his until his coaster explodes. unsure
• Hopeless Suitor: It's initially implied he's got a thing for Noelle while Noelle's got a thing for Susie, but it gets Subverted in that he only likes her platonically. Although, he did act interested in her because he mistakenly believed she was crushing on him. By the end of Chapter 2, he may be turning into one of these for Susie, who even aside from any Ship Tease would absolutely not be interested given their current standing.

I-Y

• Incompatible Orientation: Subverted. He seems to have a massive crush on Noelle, but eventually reveals that he was faking this because he thought she would stop hanging out with him if he didn't... Because his ego has him completely convinced that SHE is into him. Revealing this only furthers Noelle's Enraged by Idiocy moment before he really cinches it with the reveal of his affections for Susie. Not that literally any character he has or seems to have a thing for would ever be interested anyway.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: His entire obnoxious personality and obsession with looking smart is ultimately only a cover for his deep-seated feelings of inadequacy. After Kris solves a puzzle that he couldn't, Berdly admits that winning a spelling bee over Noelle was the best he's ever felt in his entire life, and he's continuously chased that high of being admired again. However, Berdly also admits that he has no idea what he'd do if Noelle wasn't around anymore, which he knows is coming some day. He also admits that Noelle is way smarter than he is, and this constant worrying is eating away at him.
• Insufferable Genius: Though it's all an act. Berdly acts smugly superior to everyone else, convinced he's way more intelligent than everyone around him. However, he fully admits later that he's not as smart as he pretends to be. He only won a spelling bee when he was a kid because Noelle froze up at the word "December", and the ego boost went to his head. However, Berdly admits that it's all just an act, and Noelle is really the smart one.
• Insufferable Imbecile: Even when he comes to terms with his Inferiority Superiority Complex and embraces his own stupidity, it doesn't diminish his arrogance in the least. He instead starts bragging about how dumb he is, and thus how much better of a person he is, which is Comically Missing the Point of Noelle's attempts to convince Berdly to be himself.
• It's All About Me:
  • Part of the reason he interrupts Noelle from inviting Kris to join their study group is because they could drag his GPA down. He also has a habit of interrupting her whenever she tries to do something for herself, bragging that he'll do it for her.
  • Escalates by Chapter 2 when he's in the Dark World, believing he's the true hero of the story with the power of a "Light Nerd" and planning to make a "Smartopia" where he and Noelle will be number 1 and 2 over everyone. His idea of a gift for Queen is a giant muscular golden stature of himself with a Queen statue hanging off one of its arms. When he tries to apologize to Noelle for how he's been later on, he adds that she's clearly only been helping him because she has a crush on him. When Susie expresses wanting to save Noelle before the climactic fight, Berdly takes it as a sign that Susie's fallen for him.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Tells Kris that they wouldn't have so much trouble getting a good partner if they had been on time. He's right, but the way he says it is just unnecessarily condescending.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Smug, condescending, and takes advantage of Noelle's kindness to walk all over her. Even after he joins the good guys, he's still sort of a dick, though his ego takes a real bruising. Underneath this masking his inferiority complex lies a teenaged boy who sincerely cares about his friend Noelle and gradually, if only slightly, warms up to the heroes after opening up about why he is the way he is. In the Weird Route, he stops acting like an egomaniac and acts immensely concerned for Noelle’s safety when he notices she doesn’t recognize him while acting strangely distant and, while he has no idea what’s going on, seems to realize Kris is acting as a negative and toxic influence around her, sporting a serious expression on his face when he fights Kris instead of his usual cocky smirk, focusing his attacks exclusively on Kris and taking the fight deadly seriously. Even before his Heel–Face Turn, Queen will note there's nothing really wrong with him, he's just annoying.
• Kill It with Ice: On the Weird Route, Berdly becomes a victim of Noelle's SnowGrave spell, encasing him in a huge, hexagonal ice crystal. not a character trait
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Played With. He scores on his schoolwork pretty consistently well, but that's only because Noelle helps him study. On the other hand, he struggles whenever he has to figure something out for himself, even with simple problems such as the spotlight puzzle in Queen's mansion — for comparison, Susie was able to suggest a strategy for the third iteration of the puzzle while Berdly was sputtering to himself trying to figure out a solution. Heck, he makes Lancer look smart, especially when they're in the same room.
• Large Ham: Berdly is not one for subtlety and almost always introduces himself in a loud, bold, and ridiculously dramatic way.
  Berdly: Fear not, my beloved Noelle!! This valiant warrior of brave intelligence will be your knight in glow in the dark armor!
• Laser Blade: He uses a green energy halberd with a yellow ax blade as an weapon in the Dark World, although he mainly uses it as a focus for his wind magic. He also summons it when he decides to create a new Dark Fountain as an Apology Gift to Noelle, although it disappears when Ralsei interrupts him.
• Leitmotif: His main theme is "Berdly", a short chiptune waltz.
  • His Boss Remix is "Smart Race", and forms part of "Attack of the Killer Queen" during his Dual Boss fight alongside Queen.
  • "Bluebird of Misfortune" is a slower, simpler Dark Reprise of his theme that plays during his Heel Realization.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Downplayed in the Weird Route fight against him. While he doesn't have all the details, Berdly becomes serious and laser-focused on bringing Kris down once he realizes Kris (possessed by the SOUL) has been manipulating Noelle. He drops his usual condescending attitude and sports an angrier expression in-battle, while his attack patterns become more aggressive and harder to dodge. This still doesn't guarantee Noelle's safety or Kris' defeat; that's for the SOUL to decide.
• Likes Older Women: Infatuated with the clearly much older Queen, although this might just be because she told him she was a Gamer Chick.
• A Lizard Named "Liz": He's a bird and his name is Berdly (the "berd" part being pronounced identically to "bird").
• Malaproper: After Kris saves Noelle by solving the mouse puzzles, he bitterly tries to call it a fluke by saying, "Even a broken clock is right once a day", instead of "twice".
• Malicious Misnaming: Noelle's father calls him "Nerdly". He also asks her to bring him to the window of the hospital so he can throw something at him since he's unable to "kick his ass" due to being bedridden.
• Metaphorgotten: Tries to make excuses for Kris being capable of solving puzzles before he can even get started, saying they rely on brute force like cavemen. Then he retracts by saying that cavemen died out from being too stupid.
• Moment Killer: After Noelle and Susie share an awkward-but-sweet conversation on a Ferris Wheel and Susie seems to be starting to ask Noelle to spend more time together, he comes floating down and completely spoils the mood. Mercilessly lampshaded by Noelle:
  Berdly: Noelle! My lady! The cavalry has arrived to rescue you!
  Noelle: (Oh, the good part of the dream is over...)
• Must Make Amends: He eventually realizes that he'd become so wrapped up in creating a "Smartopia" for himself and Noelle, that he ended up manipulated by Queen, putting her in danger as a (potentially roboticized) pawn. And because he thinks he's been leading Noelle on all this time with a supposed crush on him. He becomes motivated to save Noelle with the heroes' help and gives much more sincere apologies to Noelle before Kris seals the Fountain.
• Narcissist: To the point where he commissions Sweet Cap'n Cakes to build a giant gold statue of himself, with a buff physique and no clothes except a pair of Crocs and a speedo that says "IQ".
• Non-Mammalian Mammaries: Parodied. Despite being a bird, the statue he sculpts of himself depicts him with nipples, which Queen notes with surprise. If Kris chooses to gift Berdly the stall prize, it will be a plush of him that also has nipples, which causes him to admit he doesn't actually have nipples... but he wishes he did, for some reason.
• No Social Skills: He cannot tell when Queen is lying to him, even when it is literally written on her face in the from of the word "LYING" displayed on her visor. Additionally, he also misses Noelle's very obvious crush on Susie and mistakes Noelle helping him study as romantic advances on her part.
• No True Scotsman: After spending all of Chapter 2 thinking Queen is a gamer like him, Berdly is mortified when he discovers that she only plays mobile games. On the other end of this, he appreciates Susie for making an actual Dragon Blazers 2 reference and christens her "a true gamer", much to her chagrin.
• Oh, Crap!: Just as Noelle casts SnowGrave on him in the Weird route, his eyes widen in shock and horror. And for good reason, too.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When you encounter him in Chapter 2's Weird Route, he drops all of his Insufferable Genius behavior and simply warns Noelle to get away from Kris/the Player.
• Paper Master: One of his signature attacks is barraging you with a Bullet Hell made of papers, all graded with an A+.
• Point of No Return: You can dip out of the weird route at any time before you command Noelle to cast SnowGrave on him. But if you force Noelle to cast SnowGrave, Berdly is frozen solid and you're locked into the weird route.
• Portmanteau: His name is a combation of "bird" and "nerd" with the suffix "-ley" to make it sound more like a name.
• Psychological Projection: Berdly always talks down to Kris, and plenty others, for not being as smart as him, which is mainly just a cover for his lack of real intelligence. He also accuses Kris of envying his friendship with Noelle, despite provoking their second battle over his own jealousy.
• Punny Name: In the Dark World, his weapon is a halberd he calls the "Holy Halbird".
• Pyrrhic Victory: When Berdly and Noelle were kids, Berdly was able to beat Noelle and win a spelling bee—but he only won "by default", because Noelle froze and couldn't speak when asked to spell "December". So while Berdly's victory gained him the adulation of his peers that he craved, he's constantly had to live with the fact that he didn't actually win the bee purely through skill.
• Recurring Boss: He's fought three times in Chapter 2. Once on a roller coaster, once on foot, and once as Queen's mind-controlled servant in her boss battle. In a Weird route, the third of these fights is skipped, as he's been frozen by Noelle's SnowGrave spell.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Despite his blue feathers, Berdly is the arrogant Red oni while Noelle is the reserved Blue.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: In a normal run, upon meeting Kris and Noelle after the "trucies" event, he'll realize that Noelle is feeling forced into her situation with Queen. Noelle expresses relief, but then he says it must be from Kris forcing her to join their side and away from serving Queen with him. In the context of normal runs, he doesn't understand that it's Queen who's upsetting Noelle, and it spawns from Berdly's tendency to demean and blame others when things aren't going his way. Moreover, ironically, his accusation exactly describes what happens in the Weird Route.
• Scrub: In-Universe; he accuses Kris of cheating and compares the act to wavedashing. unsure
• Shoo Out the Clowns: He's a rude and misguided goofball who provides a ton of comedy for Chapter 2, but his entire demeanor gets dropped as he changes into a more serious mood during the Weird Route. Goading Noelle into freezing him to death marks a successful Weird run and a much darker tone for the story.
• Shows Damage: During his fight on the roller coaster, his cart begins to sputter smoke before it explodes. He claims it's just a sign of him reaching a stronger form.
• Slain in Their Sleep: In Chapter 2, if the player commits to a Weird run and proceeds to get Noelle to cast SnowGrave, Berdly gets frozen solid by the spell, resulting in his Light World self dying while asleep.
• The Smart Guy: The smartest student in class. That said, Berdly is only in this position because Noelle helps him study.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: As part of his overall nerdy ensemble, though Chapter 2 later shows that he's not actually as smart as he claims to be.
• Smug Smiler: He almost always has a self-satisfied smirk on his face. One of the more notable (and subtle) exceptions, is on the Weird Route when Kris and Noelle confront him for his boss fight: on any other route, he maintains his confident grin during the fight, but there, he looks downright unnerved instead.
• Smug Snake: His entire personality can be described as this. He's so smug that one of his face portraits goes so off model that it's basically a scribble. He's also self-admittedly reliant on Noelle's help to be as smart as he is.
• The Social Darwinist: Downplayed. While he isn't explicitly shown to be this, his idea of a "Smartopia" has the smart (the strong) rule over the others (the weak), giving some shades of this mindset.
• Spoof Aesop: When Susie and Lancer try to explain to Berdly that they don't care whether he's smart or not, he concludes that he shall fight for the side... OF IGNORANCE! Susie wishes Ralsei was there to teach the moral lesson.
• Stealth Pun: A nerdy anthropomorphic blue jay, or in other words, a "birdbrain". As the term is synonymous with "idiot", it may seem unfitting for someone at the top of the class, but Chapter 2 eventually shows he's not really as intelligent as he claims.
• Stronger Than They Look: Despite having a similar appearance to the other playable characters, he has plenty of HP and has some impressive bullet patterns, in contrast to Susie in the Dual Boss fight against her and Lancer, where she keeps her HP stat and only has a simple ax boomerang projectile attack.
• Take Over the World: His motivation throughout Chapter 2, which is a given as he's an ally of Queen.
• Thememobile: During the roller coaster segment of Chapter 2, Berdly rides a cart in the shape of a blue bird, sporting a goofy-looking mug, designed after his appearance.
• The Thing That Would Not Leave: By the time you meet Queen and Berdly together, she barely wishes to associate with him, and it quickly gets to the point where she starts teaming up with you just to avoid him. The only reason she tolerates him for so long is that she uses the threat of hurting Berdly to get Noelle to obey her.
• Uncertain Doom: When returning to the Light World after having completed the Weird Route, Berdly doesn't wake up. Exactly why isn't made clear. The Snowgrave spell is explicitly described as "Fatal", but on the other hand, examining the graveyard in the Light World implies that monsters still turn to dust when they die, and Berdly's body hasn't. Either way, he isn't seen or mentioned again for the remainder of the chapter.
• Unwanted Assistance: Berdly tries to help Noelle in a lot of ways (Such as reading a novel aloud to the class to "spare her the humilation"), but often ends up making things more difficult for her. He explicitly admits it after Ralsei interrupts his attempt to make a new dark fountain in the normal ending.
  Berdly: After everything, I just caused trouble for you again, Noelle.
• Visual Pun: His weapon of choice in the Dark World is a halberd with an eye on it, using the blade as its "beak".
• Voice Grunting: Berdly has an obnoxious nasally laugh, tying in with his smug, nerdy demeanor. The fact that he has a unique sound effect for his text foreshadows that he isn't just a background character.
• We Can Rule Together: Of the Condescending Compassion variety, suggesting Kris join him and Noelle in creating a "Smartopia" as a "slightly less distant Number 3" to scrub the royal toilet.
• Whole Costume Reference:
  • His Dark World outfit gives him a striking resemblance to Falco Lombardi, down to some kind of red eye glass over his left eye. It's almost certainly not coincidence^note with Falco being one of the most competitively prominent characters in Super Smash Bros. Melee that he also later complains about wavedashing.
  • There are also some references to Vegeta thrown in as well, what with the shoulder pads and general armour shape; one of Berdly's battle actions is to crush his scouter in frustration.
• Wrong Genre Savvy:
  • Egotistical enough to fancy himself as the main hero of the adventure, who will grow to become "Super Lord Berdly" (much to Ralsei and Queen's confusion) and gets to choose Susie's "route" in "the VN of life". The former slowly diminishes after Queen's betrayal and his humiliation in the mansion, becoming genuinely heroic during the climactic battles against Queen.
  • In his Weird Route fight, he assumes Kris going down will let Noelle switch sides and get away. By all rights, he's not wrong for working with the information he has, but because it's the SOUL inside Kris (aka the Player) commanding Noelle, she'll still hear "their voice" even when Kris is down, meaning she won't even try to escape should she get the chance to. The results are fatal for poor Berdly.
• Yandere: Berdly has shades of this in his in his second boss fight, where he lashes out at Kris for coming between him and "his" Noelle — but it's ultimately subverted when he confesses to Noelle that he doesn't actually like her that way (in his own egotistical way of letting her down gently) and he aids the heroes once he realizes he was duped.
• Your Mind Makes It Real:
  • While he assumes his experiences in the Dark World were a dream, or a distant memory, beating either his Cyber City fight or the first Queen fight violently results in Berdly frying (and visibly zapping) his arm from pulling his wire off after the Queen fight, which results in said limb being paralyzed when he wakes up in the Light World.
  • This extends all the way to his potential death at the hands of Noelle's SnowGrave spell. If you check on him after returning to the Light World at the end of the chapter, the game describes him as "not awake". His body hasn't turned to dust, implying he may be alive, but something bad has clearly happened to him.