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The roaring knight

Observation: Kris stops us from being able to see the Knight in the light world, as well as seeing what's underneath its helmet

Conclusion: There IS something to hide here. Something Kris is desperate to hide from us.

Follow up conclusion: the Knight is a person. I saw theories that suggest that due to its weird abilities the Knight is more of a force of nature or the supernatural but in that case, why would Kris be so desperate to hide it?

Second follow up conclusion: The Knight is a person we'd recognize upon sight. Wether because we saw them before or because there's only one person it could be. Otherwise the Knight reveal would be the equivalent of the scene where Lex Luthor gets body swapped with The Flash, takes of his masks and goes "I have no idea who that is." And if that was the case, Kris wouldn't care to hide it from us.

Observation: On the form it takes most often there appears to be antlers.

Conclusion: This is unlikely to be the case for no reason. Yeah yeah red herrings tricky Tony but this is a deliberate visual design for the final boss. I'd personally feel cheated if it's a simple case of trolling or a bit. Therefore...

Follow up conclusion: The Knight is a person we would be able to recognize, that has antlers.

Therefore: the only likely knight candidates are the Holidays.

Let's go over them one by one:

Noelle: It's very clear that Kris and Carol work very very hard to keep her in the dark about everything. Unless Noelle has a second personality or something, she is ignorant of everything Knight-related and thus cannot be the Knight. We hear her thoughts, we can coerce her into doing stuff, there are no evidents that point towards her being the Knight except her antlers.

Verdict: Not the Knight.

Carol: Being the most likely voice on the phone candidate, stopping Susie from touching the guitar, being obsessed with humans souls, having a sword at her home and being characterized as a pretty ruthless person, she seems to he the obvious answer.

... Except that by the time we leave her house The Knight is already in the church dark fountain. Therefore, unless she can teleport...

Verdict: Not the Knight.

Rudy: Theoretically, it's possible? Let's say that he was fine after falling down the ladder, let's say that he only arrived at the flower shop dark world after Carol and Noelle went home from visiting him, he's physically capable of being at the same time and place as the Knight did everything they did. However,

It relies on:

1. Rudy being Fine after falling down the ladder.

2. Rudy either being able to power through his illness in the dark world or be unaffected by it (or... Faking it completely?)

3. Rudy suddenly decided that lighting the entire town for Noelle wasn't that important after all.

"(heh, don't worry about it, Sugarplumps, what good's a father if he can't help his little girl?)"

The town was only halfway lit. Implying that he was forced to stop in the middle and couldn't continue afterwards. People can come up with fanfiction ways for Rudy to be able to be the Knight despite his illness but no one can sell me on the idea that Rudy would choose to do Knight stuff over finishing the lights.

December: Everyone's to-go candidate. Their reasoning usually include the bat-looking-sword and the Knight's attitude resembling the one of a rebellious teenager. However:

The Knight has been first spotted years ago, during the event where it's implied that Dess went missing.

And most people also believe that the person trapped in the code is December.

And December-Knight gets rid of something every other knight holiday candidate has: an obvious motive. A Carol, Noelle and Rudy knights would try to bring back December. What would December Knight even do? And if she hasn't gotten kidnapped she simply got knightified, what has she been doing all these years? Away from her family? Why only act now? What is she trying to accomplish and why does Kris help her? What does Carol have to do with all that?

There's a video I watched not too long ago that pointed out that every explanation that incldues "she isn't herself" is robbing the agency of what's supposed to be the final boss and kind of ruins her appeal as a knight candidate if she's merely a puppet or a husk or curropted and not an independent agent with her own motivation. The person (or one of the people) getting Kris to do things for them for the sake of some grand plan is merely someone else's puppet? As the video states, "this isn't how Toby Fox writes characters." Citing Undertale's Flowey, Toriel and Asgore as examples, and pointing out that even our own player character is able to act on their own, so why rob Dess from the ability to do the same?

Every attempt to figure out how does Dess-Knight work or why is she like this is speculative fanfiction, and that's the appeal of Knight Dess. The same appeal of Gaster. We barely know anything about them, they're not there, so we can invent whatever we'd want.

Final conclusion: idk man 😭😭😭

#this is how j feel

papersnatch

is papyrus knight still funny

roachliquid

Now that we know a bit more about Asgore and his involvement with the Shelter's sealing - that he was, in fact, directly involved, and blamed himself for his part in it even if no one else did - I think we can better come to understand why Carol would do such a thing as seal away her own daughter.

Carol is a callous asshole at the best of times, and I thought there was a definite possibility that she had shut Dess up either in a misguided attempt to protect her - or, even, to "protect" other people from learning what really happened to her. There's still some plausibility to this, considering Noelle reveals in this chapter that she thinks Dess "left", but I think the real answer is both more horrifying and tragic: Carol chose the safety of the town over trying to rescue her daughter.

I wouldn't say that this is the only plausible answer - among other reasons, because it operates on the presumption that Carol willingly locked Dess away - but it does dovetail with the kind of self-martyring "pragmatism" that we've seen her display at times. She's excellent at doing "what needs to be done" when it involves sacrificing her or Noelle's happiness, as if the simple fact that they're miserable means that she must be doing something right. And leaving Dess trapped in a Dark World would certainly qualify as that.

However, I can't see her accepting this solution long-term - not when it leaves her beloved daughter trapped in a Dark World with her fate unknown. And that, in turn, forces me to reevaluate something that I said in a recent post: that Chapter 5 made it unlikely that Carol would be cruel enough to put Kris through the prophecy.

Don't get me wrong. I still don't think we can simply take for granted that this is something she'd be willing to do - but I also hadn't considered the one thing that might make her willing: getting her own kid back.

For all that Carol undoubtedly cares for Kris, they certainly aren't her kid. Her kid, as far as we know, is trapped or dead in a place so dangerous that literally no one in town is allowed inside. I've already talked about how devastating it is for a parent to have a child go missing, especially for years on end.

But if Carol's involved, does that make her a terrible person who is willingly endangering teenagers for her own benefit? Well... it's complicated. At this point, it's pretty clear that the prophecy isn't something she has any direct control over - it's something that has to happen, whether anyone likes it or not. It's also not clear exactly what the extent would be for her involvement - or if her motive is specifically to find Dess, as opposed to trying to get everything done as cleanly and painlessly as possible.

As of right now, though... I don't know that Carol's relationship to the Prophecy is the most important issue on the docket. Regardless of how exactly Chapter 6 plays out - even knowing Toby Fox's penchant for surprise twists - it's pretty clear that Carol's bullshit "protection" and the control she wields over Noelle are going to play a central role in the conflict, and will likely be the main psychological issue the Dark World helps her work through.

#HUHHHHHHH

toomanyf4ndoms77

I love this game. A lot.

placeholdtv

healing prayer

goldnight-catfishgator

Something I like about Chapter 5's "catch up for players who weren't scouring every optional line of dialogue for hints of the future" flashback with Asgore is that it clarifies something: He wasn't removed from the force because of what happened; the town did not assume he had something to do with That Day's events or failed to adequately respond. No, he drove his family away because he felt culpable and fell into madness investigating That Day instead of living his life but also, in standard Magical Otherworld Right Under Our Noses tropes, people thought he was getting way too obsessed with this outlandish idea of a fantasy land just out of sight that That Day was related to because it's downright preposterous to think such a thing could ever be possible.

And of course, in true "we don't know what's up with Carol" fashion, him being removed from his role as police chief could either be "you need to stop trying to find out who was responsible for That Day so I'm going to remove your privileged access to information and your ability to freely scour around for evidence" evil Carol, or "I need your whole attention on this Dark World thing if there's any shot at undoing what happened but you're not doing your job and people don't believe your story, so I can't have you doing this so publicly" ruthless-yet-not-evil enabler Carol. Considering all the pointers towards "Carol wants to preserve happy moments even if it ruins the point," the obvious sympathy that has her employing her husband's best friend, the conspiracy theory corkboards in both their residences etc., I'd assume the latter.

slimespecter

tmos-time

honestly this was a really satisfying detail to notice about chapter 5

squiddy-ink-s

Naive boyfriend

criiitter

obsessed with kris using things the player can't see to communicate with other characters. drawing on the window in the diner. 80% as much honey on toast as usual. silly faces and nodding/shaking their head. changing the tone of what we make them say to make it clear that they mean it differently. i love that it's shown time and time again that kris ISN'T apathetic about anything. kris wants friends. kris has boundaries and wants mom to know that what she did made them feel bad. kris wants the people in their life to be happy and kris wants affection. i love kris deltarune

veroniccordion

im 12 years old and this is my deltarune oc hes name is flowery and he has maximum stats in all stats and he has unlimited money and hes really good at everything and hes asgores best friend and and everyone loves him