Brutal Critical

Art by Robotnik-mun

[thedexcat]

Deltarune Speculation: The case of the missing soul

"Who really died that day? And who came back?"

Welp. I've got that Deltarune brainrot again, so I once again return to this website to dump my garbage pile of shower thoughts.

While I don't watch "theory videos", some speculation has passively osmosed its way into my mind, leaving me to dwell on their implications. And it feels like in the process, I've stumbled upon a huge secret hidden in plain sight.

Let's start with Kris. You know the general deal; Players would assume that Kris was just a flat template character to project onto, only to be caught off-guard when they began doing things of their own volition. Thus, people came to the conclusion, "Okay, we the player are the Soul, which controls Kris." And that... isn't entirely accurate. We have control over the Soul. But if we are the Soul, then things wouldn't make sense. Consider the first time we see Kris's room in Chapter 1.

This is the first time that we, the player, enter this world. And yet, the cage to hold us is already there in the corner. The bloodstain is there too, suggesting a history of throwing the soul into the cage. We are new to this world, but the Soul isn't. It is only our influence that has entered the picture. Furthermore, it's safe to say that this isn't Kris's Soul. Kris only seems able to fully exert their will when the Red Soul isn't in their body. The soul is an outsider, exerting its will over Kris. This leaves us with two major questions: Where is Kris's Soul? And where did the Red Soul come from?

Let's start by going over the properties of the Red Soul. As explained in Undertale, the Red Soul is indicative of high levels of Determination; The power that can turn back time and change fate. But there's something... different this time around. Frisk remembered past loops. They remembered killing, being killed, solutions to problems solved in another life. However, there has been zero indication that this is the case for Kris. When Kris does take control, they act the exact same way every time.

If you were to do the Weird Route, Kris expresses extreme anger towards the Red Soul. Yet if you were to do a normal run in another file afterward, there is no lingering resentment. The soul in their body can turn back time and take different actions, but the Red Soul doesn't belong to Kris. The only people in the know would be you... and the Red Soul itself.

It's easy to assume the Soul is just a flat template to project onto. But, very subtly, it has been doing things of its own volition. We didn't control it when it rose up to seal the fountains. We didn't perform any input to make it shine in the dark hallway of Chapter 4. The Red Soul did those things on its own, and none of us ever questioned it.

So whose soul is it? Well, let's narrow it down. The Red Soul is, without a doubt, a human soul. The amount of Determination needed to reverse time is orders of magnitude more than what a monster can physically handle, after all.

With the Red Soul existing before our involvement, this would mean that the owner of the Soul is a human being that Kris has a history with. A human that once lived in Hometown. A human that has been conspicuously absent from the story.

A human named December Holiday.

...Okay, I admit it. I skipped past some of my reasoning for the sake of narrative impact. "What the hell do you mean December was a human?" you're probably thinking.

An NPC in town makes a casual reference to the Holiday family, mentioning "The antlered girl and her sister." Implying that, between the two siblings, having antlers is Noelle's distinguishing trait. But didn't we see December as having antlers in that flashback in Chapter 3?

Yes. And Kris had horns in that same scene.

If a human were to be adopted by a monster family, and the only other human in town was also in that exact situation, it would only be natural that a certain bond would form. Kris may have worn their fake horns out of a childish fantasy of growing their own someday, but the older December may have worn fake antlers out of a sort of solidarity with Kris.

Now consider December's room. Or more specifically, her closet.

Okay, setting aside the gratuitous Red Soul imagery (which does say a lot in hindsight), is there anything else strange about the contents of her closet?

...It's the shoes. Once again, the game uses lesbians to distract players from deep lore implications. When accompanying Noelle in Chapter 2, a certain emphasis is placed on her inability to wear shoes. She has hooves, so putting normal shoes on her wouldn't make any sense. Hell, in the first Act you can perform with her, the high heels of her nurse costume cause her to immediately fall flat on her face. Reindeer and shoes do not mix. So why the hell would there be shoes in a household of cervines? Well, the answer is self-evident. You may also recall that when examining December's room, there was specific mention of "ice skates fitted for hooves". But those were in a pile of unused junk. Not only that, but in the image above, you can see a pair of ordinary ice skates fitted for humans. Hockey was Dess's thing, but she wanted to be able to include her little sister. With all this in mind, let's create a rough timeline of events.

Kris and December are adopted by their respective families

Kris, Asriel, December, and Noelle have their happy fun times together

THE VERY BAD DAY HAPPENS

December is now missing, and Kris's body is now housing a Soul that isn't their own

Asgore is kicked off the force, but continues to investigate the VERY BAD DAY, implicitly with the support of Carol.

Years later, we show up

And if you need more convincing that the Soul is that of December Holiday, I want you to consider: The piano.

When under the influence of the Red Soul, Kris's performance with the piano is... lacking. At the very best, you're left picking at keys one-by-one with an extremely unintuitive interface. You can only perform a barebones facsimile of a song at most, even if you the player are a professional pianist in real life. But when Kris takes full control, it's a proper performance.

So then... what the hell was that Chapter 3 minigame?

Under control of the Red Soul, Kris seemingly takes to the guitar like a fish to water. Mechanically speaking, playing the guitar is vastly more simple for the player to perform, and the sound that comes out is an actual song rather than a novice plucking at the strings.

We, channeling our influence through the Red Soul, can barely interface with a piano. Because that's not the instrument December played. She played the guitar, and she wouldn't need any strenuous effort to use one.

There is, of course, much more to say on this matter, such as the way Carol fixates more on the Soul than Kris, or the symbolism of the 8-bit games in Chapter 3 (choosing to let Ralsei control 8-bit Kris hits different now...)

But even if this is all true, that leaves many more questions.

How can Kris exert their own influence in the absence of a soul of their own? What happened to cause this seeming swapping of souls? And how did the Weird Route get even MORE fucked up than it already was???

(reminder that the song that plays here is literally just Raise Up Your Bat) At that point, things devolve into blind speculation on my end. But this is the most confident I've ever felt about a crackpot lore theory for this game.

[simplefanatic]

Krusielle headstack?

I think this is what u mean

[watamii]

I have this strong, weird feeling that Dess from Deltarune is actually a human who was groomed by her mother to behave and present herself as a monster.

What really sells me on this theory is the family photo and Dess’s room filled with shoes that no one else in her family would realistically wear. The family picture parallels Kris wearing fake devil horns to blend in with monsters, so from a storytelling standpoint, Dess could be a parallel to Kris: someone forced to wear fake antlers, not by choice, but because she was expected to “fit” the role of a monster.

Anyway, here's my take on Dess`s appearance:

[brutalcritical]

Weird Route and Forgotten Man/Egg Rooms connections (Updated!)

So i've been musing on this for quite a bit now, and the more i think of it the more i can't unsee the connections between the weird route and all the forgotten man stuff with the egg rooms. Consider:

They both involve isolating Kris from the fun gang (Kris with Noelle in the weird route, Kris on their own in the egg rooms). This is most noteworthy in ch4, where you have to literally run the other direction susie is going to get to the stained glass room (and thus the ROOTS and therapy rooms) from the second sanctuary.

You need to get to the dog dumpster to continue their respective routes (you need to get in here and back out for chapter 2's egg roo, and spamton hides out here in the weird route and you need to get to him to get the thorn ring.) Also note the graffiti of the scarlet trees the forgotten man hides behind is right next to the dumpster spamton hides in.

The ARG alludes to and hints at both of them (referencing Ice Palace from the mantle minigames of board 2, among other things, and the webpage with a punch of stained-glass windows hinting at how to get to the ch4 egg room).

FRIEND connections to both (mantle minigame for weird route, and its theorized that the special egg Noelle gets in /egg/, that it itself is theorized will hatch into FRIEND if we take into account /rain/, is from the forgotten man, as you get to that page from a web page featuring the familiar scarlet tree, /man',, not to mention its likely FRIEND is tied to whatever trauma Kris is repressing as represented by said egg rooms due to the whole "lost where the forest would grow, the children followed the pointed tail" from the roots room. Also Cats from Cat Petters hatches from eggs).

The Phrase "Aren't you forgetting something" appears in regards to you not getting the previous board's key in the mantle minigames (the full phrase is "aren't you forgetting something importent?"), as well as thrice in the spamton sweepstakes (/d_a_m_n_y_o_u_t_e_n_n_a/, /windows/, and /window/) as text you see on the tab, one of which is a reference to the sword route again (and even leads to /icepalace_glaceir/) while the other two are hints at how to get the chapter 4 ROOTS room (which is how you get the chapter's egg).

CH3 has a guide, or at least something to hint at, both the weird route and the egg rooms (mantle minigames for the former, the forgotten man's schedule for the latter).

They push, but not force, you to go down either a pacifist or violent playstyle (Weird route I don't need to really explain, snowgrave go brrr, and you're locked out of the chapter's egg room if you go down it, and you're locked out of the Nowhere if you fought the Ribbicks earlier in the chapter).

The way to go down them is both hidden and obtuse, often requiring a guide to go down them (Egg route gets it worse than WR, but the latter is still difficult to go down without a guide on hand).

It's also noteworthy that Miss Mizzle refers to love as being made of eggshells, which is interesting to note in the context of LOVE (Levels Of ViolencE) and its ties to one of the prophecy panels in chapter 4 "LOVE FINDS ITS WAY TO THE GIRL". A Rudinn also brings up that Castle Town's LOVE is cracked if you didn't recruit anyone from chapter 3. The philosophers also state that the answer is LOVE, seemingly to the questions that they speaking about, which also feels relevant.

On a thematic level, both the eggs and the weird route as a whole seem tied to the concept of video game secrets, more specificity glitches and exploits (the weird route is very much a creepypasta-esque twisting of the game tied to a character who has a habit of finding secrets in video games, and to get the eggs you literally needs to go to the deltarune equivalent of the backrooms to get them). Its also notable people have compared the eggs from the eggman to the error handler glitches such as bad egg.

Unlike the Shadow Crystals which can be progressed retroactively (i.e., if you played save file 1 up to chapter 4 and got the chapter 2 and 4 crystals, you can go back into chapter 1 and 3 and get their shadow crystals so you can find them in the hole in the wall in castle town), the Weird Route and the Eggs can only be progressed Linearly (i.e. you can play the game up to chapter 3 on save file one, replay chapter 2 for the weird route, and then continue to chapter 4 and now its the weird route now, same for the eggs, in that you can't collect them retroactively).

What does all of this potentially mean. Well i have an idea for awhile now that the Forgotten man and collecting his eggs are key to their own "route" alongside the Weird Route (possibly the "good ending" counterpart to the Weird Route, ala pacifist to genocide). After all, if the PlayStation achievements are to go by, Gaster sees the Eggs as an issue (how or why is not truly relevant here, if i have to quess its completely outside of the knowledge of the prophecy unlike the weird route which, if we use the mantle minigames as a base, is a "forbidden path" or is the original, intended prophecy itself), so clearly they are not too unimportant. But what makes them not too important?

My first though as far as the "not too important" half of the egg's description is that the eggs themselves aren't the important part of the egg route. They essentially a glorified progress counter and nothing else and when you get all five the forgotten man will pop into the plot and do something.

However the Dog Dumpster being a key room for both the Egg Route and Weird Route makes me think back on the Thorn Ring and how it can be made into the Twisted Sword. You see currently the actual purpose of the currently unused Pure Crystal, likely the reward we get from Seam (or whatever other cat in the area) when we get all the Shadow Crystals. The only currently know use for it as an item you combine with the Thorn Ring to create the Twisted Sword.

So what if, instead of the Pure Crystal having a different use than being needed for the Twisted Sword, what if there was a different way to get the Thorn Ring. We Know that from the Forgotten Man's schedule that he will "harvest the wheat" in sunday, Flower King is a very likely (if not a lock) for at least one of the dark worlds, and datamined responses from noelle to the various items in chapters 3 and 4 implies noelle might be a playable party member in chapter 5. So the circumstances are aligning in a way for the reward to getting the Thron Ring via the Egg Route are there.

It even makes sense from the description of the eggs themselves. They aren't too importent, as there a more immediate and generally less convoluted way to get the thorn ring (by going down the weird route for at least most of chapter 2), but not too unimportent as you not only get critical lore, but also don't have to sacrifice any recruits to get it.

[brutalcritical]

Did an update with them with my additional thoughts.

[summerof2005]

Can I sleep with you tonight?

[simplefanatic]

Uh uh uhmmmm KRIS PRANKING NOELLE

Theres humans under my bed

[casteliamoonside]

Who is Ramb talking about here?

It has to be either Noelle or Dess, and honestly, I'm inclined to believe that it's Dess. Bringing a laptop home from the library to play pretend with Kris feels like something she'd do. Though at the same time, Noelle does have an affinity for tech, plus Queen already takes an interest in her in the Dark World.

The last line does muddy things a little, as well, since it could be interpreted as either Kris and Noelle having drifted apart as they got older, or Dess having disappeared.

[alicelufenia]

I'm inclined to agree it was more likely Dess. A couple reasons.

While the rest of Hometown (or at least the adult Dreemurrs/Holidays) views Kris and Noelle as the classic childhood friend pair, it's curious how little Noelle actually features in Kris's own dark world. Tenna doesn't mention her at all (outside his flashback which was about when both families would gather). Noelle really only appears in the Sword Route as the white cloak; a symbol of Kris's anxieties around getting close to her again.

Meanwhile the rest of TV World is filled with references to Dess. The guitar minigame. The ribbick that refers to “a lost and lost and lost girl.” BALLGAME. The code to watch music videos is 1225. And of course there's fighting the Roaring Knight in front of a dang Christmas tree.

If I had to make a rough guess at how the relationships formed, the timeline would go something like:

Having Dess as a babysitter in the earliest days, leaving plenty of time to form play routines like Card Kingdom vs Cyber World.

Occasional playdates with Noelle, Kris starts pranking Noelle and getting clapped back by Dess. Kris learns they can Command attention from both sisters this way.

Noelle and Kris spend more time as a group with their older siblings, their exploring adventures start.

Asriel more and more becomes the golden child, and Dess spends more time on her interests trying to figure herself out. Noelle becomes Kris's designated playmate, “match making” attempts really start ramping up, along with the pranks getting more intense and personal. Kris either stops wearing their horned headband, or starts to doubt their horns are coming, and develops a negative self image. May or may not have started “pretending” to rip out their SOUL here, or actually did once and played it off as a prank when Noelle caught them.

Despite all efforts, Kris actually starts developing feelings for Noelle around here. Dess has become like their older sister and they begin to model her more and more. Whether she realizes it or not, she teaches them what it means to be strong.

THE TROUBLES. Dess disappears, Angel knows what happens to Kris, Noelle either wasn't involved or quickly repressed it. Kris might resent this.

Kris undergoes art therapy, ends up repressing their trauma. Parents fight more, Kris escapes into tv.

Divorce, more tv, playing video games with Asriel. Uses games as an outlet for their frustrations, but it doesn't seem to help. Probably starts “playing” with the power strip around this time (i.e self harming). Asriel notices some things, but Kris keeps the worst hidden from him.

Asriel leaves for college. Kris loses interest even in tv, though occasionally plays games against Berdly to see him whine about losing. Probably becomes involved with Carol's Bunker Gang around now. If the birdcage and wagon hasn't shown up yet, it does now, scavenged from childhood play things that haven't been used in years. The cage sees its fair share of crashes. MAYBE the closet dark fountain is made now.

Which would bring us to the start of the story, as Kris has been spiraling for some time, until two unexpected elements come together: Susie, and meeting the Prince of the Dark. Their SOUL has now been burdened with this annoying thing called hope, and they don't know what to do with that.

[casteliamoonside]

This is such a cool analysis. I'll go ahead and incorporate this into my belief system.

I didn't even register that the reason Noelle is barely present in Chapter 3 is because Kris made the Dark World. They probably don't even think about Noelle all that much anymore despite their childhood, and if I remember correctly, Noelle herself mentions that the Ferris wheel ride (and their friendship by extension) was more of a forced thing.

Their admiration for (and memories of) Dess are definitely felt all throughout it, though. To go on a brief tangent, I'm of the belief that Susie and Dess are similar at least in temperament, and I believe that part of what draws Kris to Susie could honestly be her reminding them of Dess.

Also I just really love the idea of Dess babysitting Kris. Ramb is honestly probably talking about the games they played during these times.

Thank you for such a good read, I fear I will be thinking about a lot of this for a good while.

[miss-chans]

If it isn't Asriel Dreemurr's trainwreck of a best friend who died/vanished tragically, Chara December Holiday. SANS IS ALSO NESS

[wiltedsystem]

an idea i like that will never be canon

[happycomputertimetravel]

No, I'm not going insane about Undertale's Patience Soul, why do you ask?

Nothing about the other child with a knife intrigues me. Nothing about how they heal you with bandages in the Neutral boss fight interests me

I don't spend forever thinking about what it must have been like to be the first fallen human after the death of the royal children

W. D. Gaster definitely didn't prominently use the word patience along with talking about putting on a coat that could only be a reference to the light blue coat found in the Spamton Sweepstakes in the Valentines day newsletter

I do like the color cyan a lot though:)

[happycomputertimetravel]

We know so little about the 6 human children in-between the First fallen child that we name ar the beginning and Frisk.

Race? We don't know if that's a thing on the surface, I see no reason to assume this world is ours

Gender? Gender roles would say that the Integrity soul is a girl, what with the gender divide in ballet, but if there's one thing I can count on Toby Fox doing it's breaking gender stereotypes

Age? It's implied that all 8 were children, but that's it.

All 6 died to Asgore, but were they captured and taken to him or did they make it to him of their own free will?

From the Flowey boss fight we see that they all had save files, but could they use them? This is a surprisingly complicated question, although most people seem to think yes.

[happycomputertimetravel]

What did Patience do?!?!

[happycomputertimetravel]

Reblogging this again. 10th anniversary stream you are doing things to me. Something something flour Something Gerson Boon. What was that house

[shiftersinc]

The Only Human Document

Hello. For the past few months I have been working on a document deconstructing the dynamic between UNDERTALE's protagonist and the various factors surrounding them. After replaying the game I've had a revelation of sorts regarding this topic that I'd like to share with you.

For theorists in this community, I only hope that this proves useful going into DELTARUNE.

(View The Only Human document here)

[nighera]

*It's best if you just forget about me, ok?

[dont-touch-the-flower-child]

let's talk about Dess Holiday a little.

for all these stories telling us how awesome and cool she was...

...she wasn't really all that popular?

i mean, Dess has been gone for years and nobody in Hometown ever mentions her. the older teens/young adults, who should be her peers, only talks to Kris about Asriel.

You'd think they're avoiding the topic of Dess for Kris' sake, but truthfully, i don't see Pizzapants and Bratty as all that tactful.

instead, i think they were just never friends with Dess, and paid little attention to her even when she was around.

i think Dess was in fact rather lonely. and we only came to think of her as this cool, badass rebel girl because of how Noelle and Kris saw her.

with Noelle, i suppose Dess maintained till the very end an image of a loving, protective big sister. Noelle remembers Dess helping her win every snow angel contest, and whacking Kris over their head when they went too far with pranks, and promising to take her to a city of shining lights.

but i don't think that's the full story of their sisterhood. rather, i believe Dess had kept her bitterer, more complicated feelings for Noelle hidden, and this was where Kris came in.

but first, let's take a look at what Dess was like.

she was messy and unfocused. she was rowdy and dirty. Susie reminds Gerson of her, and Susie is aggressive, rude, implied to struggle with formal schooling, and very much ostracized by her peers.

so Dess' main friend group was like...her own sister, the boy living next door, and the neighbor boy's gremlin younger sibling.

and two of these people are just. Perfect. Noelle, sweet, polite and well-behaved, cast as the Angel that Hometowners literally worship. Asriel, so academically and socially successful. they are the faces of the Holidays and Dreemurrs, respectively, golden children of the town. they shine so bright that their siblings live under their shadows.

now, i think Asriel genuinely liked Dess, and their closeness wasn't just for show or anything.

but that doesn't mean proximity and the fact that their parents knew each other well didn't factor into this friendship. i think Dess was very aware of how out of her league Asriel was, even if she was the mayor's daughter.

i think she wasn't sure if Asriel would still be her friend if they weren't neighbors.

and then, there was Kris.

Kris was Just Like Her. just like Dess, they were weird, unruly, an outsider. just like Dess, they have a vastly more popular and easily likeable sibling.

and i think Dess leaned on Kris as Kris leaned on Dess. the bitterness Dess couldn't exactly show Noelle? she showed to Kris. the loneliness and insecurity she couldn't tell Asriel? she let it slipped with Kris. because Kris was the only one who could possibly understand her.

well, Kris and someone else. until that someone else is gone.

two of the dark worlds seem like attempts to relive the time when Gerson was alive and her teacher.

i do wonder if Gerson's passing was shortly before Dess' disappearance. if the loss of someone so important to her had shaken her and prompted her to do something drastic.

and I think Kris was the only witness to what happened to her.

[happycomputertimetravel]

Minor note that no one outside of the holidays talking about Dess is perfectly normal, why would random townsfolk talk about that poor girl that died some years back. Tenna's actually notably for having very little restraint and generally he is pushing literally all of Kris's buttons, that's kind of rude to do.

Your points about Gerson are on point though

[tsaomengde]

My fiancee and I were discussing the worst metal to use to make armor, and the obvious answers are lead and gold, but she cunningly suggested mercury. Which is a fair point, but then I wondered if solid mercury is any good. Googling told me that the melting point of mercury is -38° c (-37° f), so first you get it really fucking cold. At that point, it turns out that mercury has a tensile strength of 1900 mpa, compared to lead’s 18 and steel’s ~500-940 (depending upon the kind of steel).

Now, I know that tensile strength is not necessarily the best measure of a material’s ability to function as armor, but I’m a liberal arts major and didn’t care to actually do that much more research before going straight to, “EVIL ICE DEMONS IN MERCURY ARMOR. THE PCS CAN’T LOOT IT BECAUSE WHEN THEY PUT IT ON IT MELTS AND KILLS THEM.”

[dr-archeville]

Ice Demons wielding weapons made of frozen mercury.  Spearheads that break off & melt inside the target.  Swords that leave tiny bits of melted mercury inside the wound (the swords re-freeze to razor sharpness while in the ice demon’s claws).

[randomitemdrop]

Item: blades, spears, and/or arrowheads made of mercury frozen by Ice Magic; can only be used by one with Ice Magic, but deliver whatever damage the weapon type would normally make plus equal amounts of Cold and 1d8 Poison. Once the wound has been delivered, it continues to deliver 1d8 Poison until the mercury has been removed by healing magic, Wish, &c.

[moltz23]

Deltarune Theory Time (Chapters 1-4): The Forgotten Man's Eggs are NOT supposed to be Eggs, but rather, SOMETHING replaced by Deltarune's Error Handler.

A Bad EGG? In my Deltarune? It's more likely than you think.

I was watching HalfBreadChaos's video about Deltarune's Goner Code (as in, the part of the game made by "The Voice"/Gaster where the player/SOUL makes their vessel), and around 15:25, they bring up that the "interface" in question uses the variable EGG as an Error Handler.

Dude really likes eggs, huh.

As in, if for some reason, the program fails to generate a known variable, its internal Error Handler automatically replaces whatever was trying to be generated by the value EGG instead.

This immediately reminded me how the PS versions of Deltarune call the Forgotten Man's Eggs "issues" in the achievement "COMPLETE WITHOUT ISSUE" for Chapters 1-4. One can get these only if they do NOT get any of the Forgotten Man's Eggs.

The implications, in-universe, are that any time the player collect the Forgotten Man's gift, this causes an issue/error within Deltarune.

The Man's eggs are not truly "Eggs", but rather, something that the Deltarune application is unable to find a match for, OR generate at that very moment in time. This triggers the Error Handler, which swiftly replaces this something with an egg because whoever made the interface in-universe loves using Eggs as Error Handlers for some reason.

Goes without saying that this has fascinating implications considering the Forgotten Man is all but stated to be a repressed memory of Kris, constantly forgotten by a tree he's always found behind in...

[ariadnesweb]

The Deltarune Prophecy was Manipulated: Noelle was Originally a Hero of Prophecy

In the goner maker sequence, when naming ourselves, certain names produce weird reactions from the questioner:

This specific specific comment, of meeting someone very wonderful: occurs with 3 characters: Kris, Susie, and Noelle. Our 3 playable Lightners.

They seem to create quite the special trio.

Keep reading

[yldboth]

Deltarune: On the identity of The Voice on the Phone

(Spoilers for Ch4 Normal and Weird Routes)

It seems the theory that Carol is the voice on the Phone has risen to the top. However, I believe the voice on the phone is meant to be the Knight, and Carol is just a red herring trying to make you think she's the knight in the first place. Here are the prooves.

Exhibit A, The text box is Dark and Spooky with sharp edges, just like the knight: That's it, that's the exhibit. I promise i have better ones, hold on.

Exhibit B, What are the ellipses?: The Voice speaks with ellipses intercutting each words. At first, it's easy to assume these ellipses represent parts of the conversation we can't hear quite right on account of the soul being way in the vents while the conversation is happening in the kitchen. But does that really make sense? For one, when we spy on noelle and Susie we can still perfectly make out their conversation even through the house floor, and the same is true when we spy on Asgore through the vents. For two, in the last phone call, the soul is right next to the phone in kris's other hand and we still see the ellipses in the voice's dialog. For three, some of these ellipses don't even make sense as missing data, such as "I'll be... right there..." or "Without... soul... Kris... Will...". How much more text can you fit in there? This leads me all to believe that we're not missing any part of the conversation, the voice straight up just speaks like that. Either they have difficulty talking in general (on account of being a fucked up shadow person) or they have to talk in short bursts to get their messages through.

Exhibit C, Carol has another reason for coming home early: In the Snowgrave Route, the call by Berdly to Noelle is replaced by Carol calling Noelle. Carol is worried that Noelle is home alone and might burn herself trying to cook something to eat. This gives a good reason why Carol would come home early. It's safe to assume she would still have tried to call in the regular route, but the call would have been blocked by berdly's, exacerbating her worries.

Exhibit D, Kris doesn't make the final call on screen in the Snowgrave Route: In the Snowgrave route, the only times we lose sight of kris in noelle's house are when going through the vents to noelle's room, and for a short blackout transition between the scene in noelle's room and the scene in the bathroom. The vent sequence is really short and it's continuous, so the only point where Kris could've made the call to Carol would have been during the blackout, off-screen, really quickly, in the hallway to the bathroom. And then Carol arrives literal seconds later. During this, Kris is so overcome with emotion to the point that their vision is shaking and their ears are ringing when they enter the bathroom. So what i'm saying is, it's highly dubious Kris made the call at all. It's also worth noting that at that point, Kris didn't know that Susie had the guitar because she only told them later, when they left the house.

Exhibit E, Carol doesn't need to be the Voice to justify her actions: On a base level, the shelter code is a closely guarded secret. Carol is overly protective in general, to the point she bronzed the paper snowflake her kids made for her. So, of course she wouldn't be keen when she comes home to find an unknown teenager in her livingroom handling the object that has the secret code, which doubles as a memento of her (dead? missing?) daughter, while flirting with her remaining daughter. So she's hostile to Susie, but Kris, on the other hand, is a long time friend of noelle and the household in general, so of course she would say something like "You are welcome here anytime". My point is that there's really no need for a dark world conspiracy here, Carol's actions are completely realistic to her situation and what we know of her personality. Also, she might be Classist. Or Homophobic. You don't know.

Conclusion: I'm trying to dodge a lot of difficult questions here, like "who is the knight?", "what is their goal?" and "why is Kris helping them?", because it's more than i bargained for. But look at the diagetics here. Kris is in cahoots with the Knight, so if Carol is also in cahoots with Kris, she's at least in second degree cahoots with the Knight. Isn't the disappearance of Dess supposed to be a big sticking point for everyone involved? but now you're telling me Carol is off doing some mother-daughter shadow plot bonding with her on the regular? Why does she have a conspiracy cork board in her room and encourage Asgore's search if she's already in the know about everything? Why is she blackmailing Kris with "you promised"? Doesn't the promise make more sense if it's between actual similarly aged childhood friends rather than a grown ass middle-aged woman and some twerpy teenager?

I just don't think it makes sense.

Addendum: Of course, there's a metric ton of possible counter arguments you could bring up, but i won't really have anything worthwhile to say about most of them, so i'll just hone in on one:

Counter-Exhibit X, Kris still deletes their messages on the weird route: Once Carol kicks everyone out on the weird route, checking the phone will read that the contact history has been deleted. If Kris hadn't made the call, then they would have had no reason to delete their contact history. Alright, my counter to that is going to sound pretty cheap, but hear me out. I think... it's a bug (oversight). The check that determines whether that message shows up only looks at whether the plot value is bigger than 66 (about where the dark calls appear), meaning the message will appear when you check the cell phone at any point after that, even in the very last scene with sans and toriel dancing. This happened for me during my normal playthrough. I didn't check the phone after noelle's house, i checked it at the riverbank at night while waiting for onionsan, right before going home and ending the chapter. This was a real life day after the noelle's house sequence, so i didn't associate the message with the spooky voice, i just went "okay..?" and didn't understand. So, yes, i do think it's an oversight, because the current check alone doesn't really make sense for when this message should trigger.

But i'm not such a sore loser as to leave my argument so cheap. So here's the trick. Weeks ago, when these chapters were still bright and young, i submitted several reports for what are without question bugs, like the formula for susie's "Healing" stat in ch4 being wrong, or the shadow mantle being worse against the knight for half of players. And between them i submitted a report for the call "appearing on the weird route, even though Kris never makes the call". I think there's a fair chance i was the first to report the two "clear bugs", considering i was the one to add mention of them on the wiki, and tricky tony has said the team is planning a big patch in the coming weeks to fix some bugs. So, if the real bugs gets patched and the cell phone "bug" doesn't, then we'll know it's not a bug. maybe. i'll take it as so, personally.  

So, i'll be addendumming this post if that ever happens (or, of course, if the cell phone really turns out to be a bug and gets patched). Also, yes, this is a very egotistical way to go about it. So be it. You can't hope to shape the material world without an ego trip or two.

addendum: Patch 1.05 has come out with the announcement that the team is "not working on any other patch at this time". Neither the phone call or the two real bugs were addressed since i made this post. Such is the way of the worm, i guess.