So I’m thinking about how the Knight’s attacks seem to be so deadly, because they can actually damage the Light World objects/bodies of those they try to kill…
(which we only otherwise see in very rare and extreme cases, like Weird Route Berdly or…. Normal Route Berdly’s arm if you don’t Mercy him properly)….
That seems to be why Ralsei’s Healing Magic was useless for Flowery, their powers can’t actually work on something so literal and physical as damage that exists in the Light World.
And I’m wondering if King’s scar, that we just got an actual backstory for, is, like, part of this thematic through-line. I mean, if we take it for granted that the Knight is Dess… it seems pretty likely that she was taught by Gerson (Alphys being a very recent replacement, other Hometown Youths that seem around Asriel and Dess’ age reminisce about having him as a teacher) and then also the Unused Classroom in general and King in specific having connections to Gerson…
I mean, Dess could be that ‘careless Lightner’ who scarred King and condemned the entire ‘kingdom’ of cards into being unusable. While the actual evidence is rather… circumstantial, I’m mainly thinking about in terms of, well, first and foremost the dramatic irony of the Lightner that started King’s decent into cynicism and despair and hatred also ending up being his admired Knight that he tried to hang his Hope and Purpose on instead. But also on the idea of accidentally ‘scarring’ King as, symbolically speaking, the first act of the same ‘kind’ as the Knight’s attacks on Tenna and Flowery. Or, like, a mirror of them. Harming a Light World Object enough so it scars the Darkner they are in the Dark World versus causing a Darkner so much harm the ‘scars’ show up on their Light World object.
Just, like, a random thought I had…