Noelle's Motivations and The Man. - The Case for Hometown's Hospital.
Editing and Proofreading by: @ohandcounting
Spoilers for all of DELTARUNE, UNDERTALE.. And Persona 4 I guess…
Okay so to preface 85% of this is blind speculation. If you don’t agree with this, that's fine I’m not even super banking on it. I just haven’t seen anyone talk about this idea yet and Toby encouraged us to make theories before the game is out so I thought I would. Also I don’t watch theory videos so maybe this has been discussed but I haven’t seen it lol.
Chapter 5 came out and we didn’t learn too much new information about the overarching plot of DELTARUNE but we recently got a new newsletter from Toby where it was clarified that Chapter 6 and 7 will be more serious and that we “will begin to see the results of the setup that has been made so far.” This has led to much speculation and there’s been a bit of worry from the fanbase that these final chapters will feel rushed to wrap up everything so I wanted to write this as a way to talk about how I think this next chapter will play out given what information we have now.
This will mainly be discussing the forgotten man. There’s been a lot of discussion about the identity of the forgotten man. So far he’s appeared in every chapter and we’ve been told that Chapter 5 will be the last time we can find him and receive an Egg. However there’s a few oddities I haven’t seen discussed much. The first of which is that the Man is most likely a Lightner who once lived in Hometown. But nobody remembers him. During the Weird Route of Chapter 5 if you check Sans’ house Susie says that the house is new and that something else was there before but she can’t remember what.
Which is weird because she’s been here a while and has a history at the school before the game begins so she would have seen it many times.
Kris also remembers someone else being here before, in Chapter 5 Sans runs the ferris wheel and if you choose to stay behind while the other two go on you have the option to have Kris think about what Susie and Noelle are doing on the ferris wheel. Like when we try to have Kris think about what’s under The Knight’s helmet in Chapter 4, they refuse and start thinking about something else. They think about whether Sans is really qualified to run an attraction like this. Ending it with the question “... didn't someone else run this last year?” They can’t remember who it was. They forgot. It’s possible that Kris (the character) does actually forget the man every time they meet and get their egg as he says they will in Chapter 3.
The player however of course still remembers and will use his advice to find him in Chapter 4 and 5. Because of these separate occasions of characters failing to remember someone who used to live here I believe the Forgotten Man has to be a Lightner from Hometown.
I want to add here that I do NOT believe that the forgotten Lightner is Papyrus. I know he’s been absent from Deltarune so far but the only references to someone else being in Hometown directly relate to Sans not being here last year. Sans claims to be “new in town” at the start of Chapter 1 and Susie acts like they’ve never met despite the fact she’s lived here a long time so he couldn’t have been living there long before the game began. He probably just moved in that morning. The strange situation with Papyrus will probably have some payoff but I don’t think he’s the man.
Okay then who is it? We don’t know. They’re gone and nobody remembers them. Ok but so what? Is this reveal going to be some new guy named ‘Greg’ or someshit that’s totally out of nowhere? That seems like lazy writing and it would be! If not for the clues. So as mentioned we know someone is missing from town. It’s a small town and it seems like everyone knows each other. If anyone was gone for months it would be pretty clear that there’s a weird empty space in town like if Asgore was gone but his shop was still there that would be obviously weird, but everyone is accounted for so that can’t be the case.
Flower King is run by Asgore
The school is run by Toriel, Alphys and until his death, Gerson.
The Library has Ms.Boom (and Berdly)
Ice-E’s is run by Pizza pants and the Nice Cream guy
The hospital is run by…. Uh the nurse?
The nurse that doesn’t even have a name?
We can tell by their outfit and that they’re working the reception that they aren’t a doctor. Even the game refers to their sprite as “spr_nurse”.
Why is this the ONLY place in Hometown that has no named character associated with it? I mean you could argue that Rudy is supposed to be the main focus of this place and that’s fair and that’s probably why I never really considered this until thinking about this now. In my mind the hospital is just where you go in the game to see Rudy so it never felt like something was missing. But really thinking about it he doesn’t have any position of power at the hospital nobody does. It’s the only place in town like this.
There’s nothing accidental about the layout of Hometown after the release of Chapter 1 Toby released a long post detailing what the game is and the struggles with creating a game like this. One of the things he explicitly cites is the structure of Hometown. “The entire town had to be created correctly on the first try to set up properly for the rest of the game” So I would be surprised if he literally just forgot to add someone here and only here.
I probably wouldn’t be talking about this if it wasn’t for Chapter 4’s egg and all the new information from Chapter 5. In Chapter 4 Kris enters a hospital and does some form of art therapy with the Forgotten Man. Many people have said that this represents a repressed memory Kris had from some traumatic event in the past, if you think that has to do with Dess or the vessel or something else that doesn’t matter my question is, who were they talking to in this memory? Who was the doctor? The man. It has to be the man.
The layout of this hospital is also very similar to the Hospital in Hometown, as if we’re just seeing it at a different angle, or how in your dreams a familiar place is wildly different than it actually is but your brain just accepts that this is how it always was during the dream. This new hospital however has one major difference from the Hometown hospital and that’s the addition of a new door in between the two existing ones. The sprites used for these hospital doors are also exactly the same as the Hometown ones but this could just be asset reuse for the sake of budget and scope.
There’s a perfect space to place such an extra door in the Hometown hospital almost like the game is trying to tell us that there is a room in between and that’s where the man is, just how we find him in the dark world. When you check the poster on the wall where the door could go the description reads “It's a diagram showing a bunch of lines and a circle.” which is one of my favorite jokes in the game but also that’s sort of weird to think about in universe, almost like we’re not supposed to actually check this wall and there’s no flavor text ready for it because it shouldn’t be here.
I would only assume that The Doctor has to be the Deltarune counterpart of our homeboy W.D. Gaster and not the same Gaster we hear about in Undertale. Him going from Royal Scientist to Medical or Psychiatric Doctor would be a natural fit. It would be really messy to include a new major plot relevant character at this point so I don’t think The Forgotten Man will be a whole new character that needs a backstory and explanation this late in the game on top of also having to explain Gaster.
In Chapter 3 you can receive various fortunes that hint at how to get the very difficult to find Egg. One of these fortunes reads
"Kris felt a feeling of deja vu.
... however, the handwriting was illegible!
Kris felt a feeling of deja vu."
The inclusion of "deja vu" is key here as they feel as though they've seen someone write like this before.
The man is also said to have illegible hand writing from the Valentines Day letter that was sent out.
Gaster due to his Wing Dinging has also been implied to have unreadable handwriting.
I've been here since 2015 and I've seen many people say this must be Alphys' handwriting and while it's true she is implied to have tried to fix this machine with Sans her handwriting is always described as a sort of 'chicken scratch' this being clearly "symbols" makes me feel like it's not Alphys.
(Also Gaster having bad handwriting and being an actual doctor in Deltarune would be a pretty funny bit.)
Moving on from the identity of The Man I want to talk about the setting of Chapter 6 and how it could tie into the Forgotten Man plotline. I’ve seen a bit of discussion that the next chapter will be based in the Holiday family house but as the plot is now I’m not sure why we’d go back there. All signs point to the hospital being the setting for Chapter 6’s Dark World. I know Susie wants to go back to get the guitar at some point but I just can’t explain why The Knight (if we are assuming one of the Holidays is The Knight) would create a fountain where there’s nobody they need to kidnap, Toriel seems like the only one left they need. The only thing I can see is as a defense mechanism as they know Susie’s ripped ass could snap Carol in half in the Light World. If Noelle does end up a full member of the squad fully in the loop about The Knight and the Shelter it would be pretty easy to just have her steal the guitar or get the code for us without having to go through Carol.
The hospital actually does have quite a few story hooks that could naturally lead the gang there and have a reason for a fountain to be created there and I’ll explain them.
There are two major events relating to Noelle that are confirmed to happen very soon. She will be properly introduced to the Dark World, and her father’s condition will worsen, perhaps even bringing him close to death. Carol’s multiple calls and the tone Noelle has implies it’s very bad.
Now what do you think Noelle will do when she hears that the Dark World is real after just learning that her father is terminal? Go on a long adventure with Susie and Kris looking for codes at her house to stop some “Knight” she’s never even seen?
She knows how to make Dark Fountains, Queen tells her in Chapter 2 how to do it. I bet in an act of desperation she will create a fountain so she can use her magic to try and save her father.
Noelle has had quite a bit of development so far, she’s becoming stronger and more independent with her finally being able to open up her feelings to Susie. She talks about her desire for agency in the Weird Route but I don’t think those feelings are exclusive to that route. She still wants to stop marching along her path and make a real change in her life.
While not as drastic as what happens in the Weird Route this part of her character could still manifest here with her deciding to not stand idly by and watch her father die. Rushing headfirst by herself to the Hospital. Right now it seems like her father is all she has to rely on and she fears losing him the most. Her arc in this chapter could conclude with her learning that while she can be strong by herself she still has people who care about her who will help her. She might even create the fountain off screen allowing Kris and Susie to find the Dark World already formed. Giving us a Kris Susie and Noelle party chapter as Toby is never going to program four party members beyond scripted moments like with Gerson.
This could be even foreshadowed heavily in Chapter 2. When Berdly is about to create a Dark Fountain Noelle talks about how “Everything can be healed with a little spell” and later in the chapter when Noelle is talking to her father in the hospital she tells him directly that she wishes she had magic in real life to make him better.
A lot of the central plot points revolve around Noelle. Her sister vanished in some major event nobody talks about anymore, her mother is likely involved with Kris and The Knight in some way, and her father is close to death. Noelle being the “one aspect of the story” that this chapter will focus on is very likely. But Toby also says “in fact, it may surprise you what was missing!” What exactly is the major thing that won’t be touched on in Chapter 6 could be a lot of things but I really don’t think it will be Dess. I think the “...thing that will be clarified whether you're ready or not” will likely have to do with Gaster/The Man. Chapter 6 will finally give us some crumbs about Gaster and start moving the plot towards the shelter because boy we only have one Chapter after this…
One other non-Noelle piece of foreshadowing evidence towards a chapter in the Hospital is in Chapter 4 as Kris will play many songs on the piano. They play a few songs from the game so far and also some that have not been heard by the player yet. One of which is the shop theme from Chapter 5 meaning that it’s very likely that all of these songs will appear in the game eventually. All of these songs are also only featured in the Dark World. One of them in the files is named “Kris_Piano_Waitingroom.ogg” which uses motifs from Hip Shop and Green Room. The only place I can think of that could have a “waitingroom” themed area would be the hospital. This area could also combine both the piano mechanics from Chapter 4 and the platforming of Chapter 5 like we saw in the newsletter but would most likely be a chill out sort of area with a shop like the Green Room.
A chapter in the hospital would also work well as a Chapter that can be skipped in Side B. As Noelle creates the fountain it’s entirely separate from The Knight’s plot so we don’t need to worry about them using this fountain as a means to kidnap anyone unless they’re really doing some future sight 4-D chess nonsense but probably not.
The rest of this is mainly wild speculation. From now on I’ll mainly be talking about how one could write this and why having the Dark World here could also be quite economic storytelling to get the story ready for the huge story moments in the final chapter.
I think based on what we’re given at the moment the hospital being where the fountain of Chapter 6 is created makes the most sense based on character motivations and the possible involvement of the man with the hospital.
The way I see it, Deltarune has two storylines happening. We have the main story which revolves around The Fun Gang trying to save the world from the hands of The Knight who is stealing people from around town for some sort of "sacrifice" and we have another story only hinted at so far with the vessel, the depths, IMAGE_FRIEND, ERAM, eventually probably Gaster and Deltarune’s connection to Undertale. These have been largely not overlapping and we have been dying for that B plot with Gaster to emerge and converge with the main story. This B plot has not been introduced in universe yet. This whole plot has been only between the player and the game so far. We just sort of assume that the shelter is where Gaster is (which is likely based on the noise that plays outside) but I think it would be WILD when the gang opens the shelter in Chapter 7 and he literally just comes around the corner and is like “oh hi guys im gaster undertale welcome to my shelter this is my cat”.
I’m sure you could still write this well but the whiplash would be wild, not just a twist villain reveal but a new major antagonist coming in this late out of nowhere if you aren’t a total plugged in UTDR Truck Freak would be insane. This would almost be like if the first time we hear about The Knight is when they appear in Chapter 3.
I know people who LOVE Undertale and Deltarune but don’t really know what a Gaster is or why he’s important. He is going to need at least a little bit of build up and if you were going to hint at the true final big man of this story you’d do it here.
So how do we establish Gaster early without just flat out having Carol or someone on the phone going “Hello can I talk to G…” or something equally lame? If we’re assuming the forgotten man is both a Lightner and the missing doctor then I’m going to ask we assume just a little more about him so we can get somewhere.
In Chapter 5 we learn from Asgore’s documents that “a long time ago” there was a Dark Fountain. We do not know how long the Dark World has existed but it’s been a while. Likely since Dess went missing. Given the timeline it would be weird if Kris, Noelle or even Dess created this fountain. The Knight seems to have a deep understanding of how Dark Fountains function. They know how to make them, how to start The Roaring, how to summon a Titan, and even in Chapter 5 that weird ass shit where they make a fountain in a Dark World but they do it like frame perfect after it closes so they don’t summon a titan? I still don’t really understand that one but ok. Either way what I mean to say is that they are experienced and they did not make their first Dark World in that classroom in Chapter 1 nor did they only learn about the Dark World in Chapter 1. For this to make sense The Dark World needs a genesis in the plot. At this point in the game we should be asking what it is and where it came from.
I don’t think The Knight is The Man or the Doctor but someone needs to have a deep understanding of the Dark World. Our characters have been getting stronger but they are still LV 5 chuds with 200 hp compared to The Knight with over 7000 HP.
There’s not much in the hospital to be all that interesting of a Dark World which does lend us a bit of credibility compared to Chapter 6 taking place in Noelle’s house which has a ton going on as this is supposed to be a shorter Chapter. This chapter would be largely focused on the mystery surrounding The Knight and other aspects of Noelle’s character development as if she’s to join the main Fun Gang for Chapter 7 she’s going to need to flesh out her dynamic with the team more who have had the whole game to do this, but this would be a great place to start leaving hints at there being someone other than The Knight at play.
As the player we know about the Shelter and how it probably contains Gaster but Susie and the rest of the characters have nothing to work with regarding the forgotten man plotline and the same goes for players who didn’t find any eggs because lets be real without looking it up a lot of these are horseshit.
I believe Toby showing us that written notes get jumbled up going in between the Dark and Light world in Chapters 4 and 5 is a hint at this. You could use the Dark World as a sort of base of operations in plain sight and nobody would know and there would be no evidence left behind it would all stay in the Dark World using it as a form of encryption.
This person could have once existed as a doctor or someone else who worked at the hospital and worked in that room in between and used the Dark World a long time ago. They could have been the first one to learn about it and started taking notes hiding them within the Dark World. Which could later be found by the party in Chapter 6. The only issue with this is that Kris alone in the story has the power to seal Dark Fountains as without Kris they would not be able to close their fountains. But this is relying on Ralsei who did not even know there was a fountain created a long time ago. I think Ralsei is a little unreliable as a narrator; he gives us the impression that he knows everything about the story but when pressed for specific information especially regarding the Light World he doesn’t know anything, such as when Susie just asks him if he knows the Shelter codes in Chapter 4.
When asked about Noelle, Ralsei basically only knows what items she can equip because that’s all that’s relevant to the Dark World, I do not believe he knows anything that happens in the Light World. (I could be wrong about this I didn’t re-read the whole script looking for moments about this but I can’t think of anytime he seems to know about what’s going on in the Light World) In Chapter 5 he doesn’t know why Kris is creating Dark Worlds which seems like it would be a major part of this whole prophecy he knows about coming true. So basically I just don’t put too much stock in Ralsei knowing everything.
Even assuming that Ralsei is correct and only Kris is able to seal Dark Fountains it’s still possible that The Man’s connection with the Hospital will be revealed in Chapter 6 as his room and evidence of his existence might still exist in the Dark World just like how his various trees can only be found in the Dark World.
Eventually Noelle will put the pieces together about whether this man might have something to do with her Sister’s disappearance. This chapter will also likely include the much teased Flashback finally explaining what happened to Dess. We know that the song “Flashback Excerpt" used since Chapter 2 is just that, an excerpt of the full song. There’s a fantastic video looking into how this song actually will likely play in Chapter 6 or 7 and will include Gaster’s theme from the Undertale soundtest. It’s a pretty convincing watch so check it out here. This song will be used in this Chapter as our characters learn of what happened to Dess in this Flashback.
You could also have the angel doll that Noelle and Dess made in youth group serve as the trigger for this information. This doll has a lot of Vessel parallels going on with it so there's a lot of potential for this as a Darkner of the chapter, maybe even the main boss.
We’ll call the man the Doctor from now on just to keep it simple, but The Doctor could have discovered The Dark World in some manner and then kept experimenting with it in secret. They would likely be analytical given their nature as an academic but also recognizing the danger of it so they would still be secretive about it. I doubt that Gaster from Deltarune is objectively evil or anything, just someone who got caught up in some weird paranormal stuff and didn’t know what to do about it he’s rather kind towards Kris in the egg rooms and seems to have a fondness for them which would make sense if they had a relationship in the past as one of his patients.
Now here we enter all the weird meta stuff going on, I don’t know what Gaster’s whole deal is but I would assume that Undertale Gaster is in the Shelter or at some weird meta higher plane of existence and the forgotten man is the man he replaced in this world with him somehow having his existence written over and everyone in the Light World forgetting he ever existed. The only thing left is fragments of him in The Dark World stuffed in between the seams with his Eggs. The Eggs after all are evidence. “You'll know what it was evidence for when it happens.” It was evidence for his existence. Evidence that there was a man here and maybe there will be something that happens to fully erase him. Kris and everyone else cannot remember him but they are starting to feel that something is missing. Even if you drop the Egg Kris seemingly asks “What Egg?” they don’t know they have it.
Now it’s REALLY hard to say anything more beyond this as I don’t think anyone has a confident guess as to what exactly the hell is happening with the particulars of Gaster and The Knight’s plot as it’s clearly not to start the Roaring because that would be really easy to do in an afternoon just open a shit load of fountains cheap and easy fun. But looking at Chapter 6 like this would at least give Toby a way to wrap up loose ends with Noelle’s story while pushing the plot forward and finally giving the main characters some agency towards bringing Gaster into the story. As for ERAM and Friend I imagine a lot of that will be relegated to Side B as it seems Chapter 7 Side B will be a whole Chapter to itself and a lot of that as initially teased with the Weird Route stuff in Chapter 3
This whole setup of them getting all the clues and taking a moment to think about who the real culprit is before confronting them instead of just falling into the plot once the Shelter is opened would also feel very Persona 4 to me which we know Toby likes and he played in 2010 before conceptualizing Deltarune from 2012-2016. I like persona 4 toby you should make persona 4.*
But that's all the information I could pull out about the hospital in Chapter 6. I'm excited to see where the story goes from here!
*Editor's Note: I do not like Persona 4. This, dear reader, implies you are required to leave here with a nuanced stance on Persona 4…
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