Deltarune's Quadrifecta of Parallels, Mentorship, and Legacy
My friends and I recently guided our roommate through her first full playthrough of Deltarune. Afterward, to try and catch her up on some common knowledge, I put together a massive presentation about everything we've ever learned about W.D. Gaster from both Undertale and Deltarune. While it was a good refresher for all of us, it wasn't anything groundbreaking or new.
Except… for one thing. As I was putting together information for all of the allusions and parallels towards Gaster in Deltarune, I could not stop picturing an image in my head that looked like this:
During my research, I could not stop finding new details and parallels that created connections in this particular square. So, I've written some analysis about what I think could be some important shared themes between characters and Deltarune, and how that might inform the Knight's nature and motives.
When talking about legacy, there's no one in Deltarune who does it quite like these two. Aside from a few superficial details like both having 6-letter names that start with G, and both having one bad eye, and even the fact that Gerson is the only character in Undertale to acknowledge the Delta Rune and the prophecy---Gaster and Gerson are intentional thematic parallels.
Both are talked about as having been brilliant and irreplaceable... if not for the fact that they have been replaced. Gerson is dead in Deltarune, whose absence is felt by everyone who talks about how great of a teacher he was. Alvin acknowledges how he wishes Kris could've had him as a teacher. Gaster's "life was cut short," in Undertale, which we don't know the specifics of, but he is unmistakably gone. The position of royal scientists went empty without them.
Both Gerson and Gaster have been replaced by Alphys. Alphys fulfills a vacant position that she was helped to obtain (by Toriel and Mettaton, respectively), and everyone around her seems to agree that she had big shoes to fill. The legacy of her predecessor was too great and ended in tragedy- will the same happen to her? The following dialogue is from a Gaster follower in Undertale, and Alvin in Deltarune.
To expand on this further, Gerson specifically leaves behind Alvin, who struggles to live up to the name of his father, refusing to write anything of his own for fear of tarnishing Gerson's legacy. Once of Gerson's few goals while we see him in the Chapter 4 dark worlds is writing to his estranged son to apologize for not doing enough to encourage him to pursue his own dreams.
While we don't have explicit confirmation that Gaster is related to Sans and Papyrus, the evidence is pretty damning, especially in a post-10th Anniversary Stream world. This tweet from Toby, in combination with repeated instances throughout the game of Sans's misery and unfulfillment about how he "can't go back" is... interesting, to say the least. It seems he cannot finish (probably) Gaster's work, just as Alvin cannot finish Gerson's.
Gerson and Gaster both are a beloved predecessor to Alphys, and they may both be men who have left behind their families (and possibly, estranged sons in particular) to pick up the pieces when they died/shattered across time and space.
Most compelling of all is this. We still don't know for certain what "creation" Gaster fell into, but it has been known for a long time that due to some failed (or wildly successful) experience, he was consumed by his work and ended his life. Only in Chapter 4 did we get this similar description of Gerson: an author consumed by his work, who fell into his creation, which is reinforced as truth with Gerson now being a living part of the prophecy he based his books upon.
So: brilliant men who were consumed by their grand creations, with oversized legacies that the youth of the future struggle to live up to.
This is the easiest to explain since we experience a lot of Gerson and Susie in Chapter 4, so let's do a very brief overview.
What is important to note about the teacher & student dynamic is that the core of the relationship is challenge and inspiration. Gerson challenges and inspires Susie, Susie challenges and inspires Gerson. Susie learns from and inherits from Gerson---inheriting the Axe of Justice weapon and title, in a parallel to Gerson and Undyne's implied relationship in Undertale. More importantly, Susie is able to carry on "Gerson's work" when no one else can: literally writing a letter of his unspoken thoughts to Alvin.
What does it mean for Susie to be the Axe of Justice? She is more than a student of Gerson and his legacy, she is her own agent of the future: she is a re-interpretation of what already exists with new hope, like the prophecy, to Lord of the Hammer, to Dragon Blazers. She is a story retold.
Where I have to get a little interpretive is when Gerson says to Susie: "You remind me a bit of someone I used to know." This is implied to be a character from Lord of the Hammer (filled in by Susie), but it's a common interpretation that Gerson may have been talking about December, who he likely taught in school.
Susie & The Knight/December
This isn't necessarily Dess Knight Propaganda, but I am a Dess Knight truther, and I think that so much of the overlapping imagery between Dess and the Knight makes for really strong evidence, so I don't really see a point in talking about them as if they're unrelated entities.
In Noelle's house in Chapter 4, we get a lot of imagery of Susie "taking Dess's place" to some degree: sitting in her untouched bedroom, playing her guitar, sharing the same interest in horror movies. She might've even been symbolized as taking Dess's place as early as Chapter 2 (check out the Susie section of my Queen as a Carol Stand-In post for more about that).
In Chapter 3, we get this Ribbick dialogue. The first statement is pretty clearly referencing Dess, and since the following two always accompany it, I think it's fair to say that they might all reference Dess (also because this fight is how you enter the Ch3 egg room and there's evidence that Dess is related to stuff in the egg rooms for reasons I don't even have time to get into).
So, we are told that Dess is messy, unfocused, rowdy, dirty, and lost. And this description... pretty easily describes Susie as well. Susie writes ASS on TV time, and Dess changed the channel to "nasty" music videos. They both like violent video games and horror movies. They even both exhibit protective tendencies, in how Dess is repeatedly said to be protective of Noelle, and so much of Susie's Chapter 4 arc expresses a desire to protect her friends.
This is interesting because so far, Susie and Dess aren't just parallels but foils. Evident by their upbringing, with Susie likely growing up poor, with a bad home life and lack of stability or support, while Dess grew up in the rich Holiday family. Additionally, due to Dess's promises to Noelle that she'll one day take her to a big city, you can interpret some desire for freedom and to leave Hometown---a desire for change. On the flip side, Susie longs for stability, directly saying in Chapter 4 that she wants "tomorrow to be the same as yesterday," so that she can keep her friends and this new happy life forever.
I can't say more about this until we know more about Dess, but I think it's worth considering. Especially considering their potentially opposed roles as a hero of the prophecy, and as the Roaring Knight.
So, lets talk about the Knight. Susie and the Knight are the most at-odds throughout the game (not in the least because Kris is working with the Knight and Ralsei literally knows the future). It's Susie that progresses the Knight fight, it's Susie that chases them down in Chapter 3 and 4, and taunts and yells at them up until the creation of the titan.
But these two also have similarities! In Chapter 1, Susie claims to not care that the world will end, saying it's "none of [her] damn business," and "Might even be kind of fun, honestly." This old mindset she seems to project (or struggle to project, given how much of it stemmed from anger and shame around being treated like a bad kid) onto the Knight in Chapter 4 when she doesn't know why the Knight could be doing this. She says she "can't think of anybody as messed up as them," and maybe "they just wanna see everything burn."
In Chapter 5, I have a feeling these parallels will get expanded upon even more.
The Knight/December & Gaster
Ok jesus fucking christ this is where is gets very, very complicated, and very, very interesting. There's a lot to talk about here so hold on.
To start, December and Gaster have a shared condition of being missing. One of the first things Gaster says to us before the Chapter 1 release was "have you been looking for me?" and one of the first things we learned about Dess was a call to action to "find her." In Undertale, Gaster was all-but non-existent except for a few rare FUN events and information only accessible in the files of the game, establishing this notion of him being literally lost in the code---an in-between state of life and death.
Similarly, we've gotten the UNUSED dialogue for each chapter of Deltarune which tells the story of an unknown entity in the code, lost in darkness to the point that they can't tell if time is passing, and whether they're alive. This is almost assuredly Dess, thanks to a convenient mention of "late night TV" from UNUSED, something which we know Dess and Noelle used to do. From what little we know about Dess's vanishing, it had something to do with the dark world, the shelter, and was a strange enough incident for Asgore and Carol to be making conspiracy boards about it.
UNUSED is written from the perspective of someone beyond the worlds we understand, in a remarkably similar manner to Entry Number 17 from Undertale, written by Gaster.
Now, let's talk about the soul. If you're familiar with Interruption Theory, you might know that while Gaster is facilitating the Player's connection to Deltarune, as seen in the goner maker, he is interrupted by a second voice who seemingly interferes and causes the Player to be possessing Kris instead. Personally, I think that this second voice is Dess/the Knight.
In Raise Up Your Bat, a song with proven associated with Dess (if she didn't literally write it herself, then it at least has metaphorical connection to her), it calls "your heart" both an "ark," and "my mark." We'll talk about the "ark" part more later, but you must remember that an ark is a type of vessel. The heart referred to is likely Kris's soul, being used as a vessel for the player---and to boot, the heart is supposedly the singer's (Dess's) mark on Kris that will guide them, which solidly implies that Dess is the one who arranged Kris's possession in the first place.
This isn't so much a parallel between Dess and Gaster as much as it is evidence of association. Both seem to have some role in why the Player operates as we do in Deltarune---Gaster has only shown interest in the Player themself so far, concerned with observing us moreso than achieving any particular outcome, while Dess/the Knight has some kind of clear goal in mind.
(Not unlike Gerson's presence in the story a force of encouragement for Susie, while Susie is the one whose goals and will dictate the fate of the narrative.)
Now, about that "ark" thing---this is one of many biblical references related to these characters. The ark is a ship used to sail across an apocalyptic flood (or "through the waves," as Raise Up Your Bat puts it) for the survival of those inside, and many theorists have talked at length about the idea of the Roaring as a flood (check out cammyboiG's "Toilet Theory" video for more on that)
But that's only the start of the biblical imagery between the Knight and Gaster. Let's get something quick out of the way: stigmata, referencing the holes in the hands of Jesus from the bible when he was nailed to the cross.
We do not technically have explicit confirmation that Mysteryman's weird white lumps are stigmata hands, but it's been a common interpretation for so long that it feels ignorant to not go over it. More explicitly, the Knight definitely does have stigmata, the white circles we see frequently on their hands.
Now for my favorite part:
This flavortext is from a book in the hidden chamber in the window hallway that's used to enter the Chapter 4 egg room.
At face level, it's already interesting. A weeping star? We know that the Knight is a dark/star type entity, and they have an animation that resembles weeping (we'll talk about that later too). "Making rivers" makes even more reference to flood imagery. The rivers made from it's tears are called bitter water---could that reference the BitterTear healing item you can obtain? Then, finally, something like glass grew from this water, just like how the ShadowCrystals are described to look/feel "like glass," and to move "like water." The shadow crystals grew from the bitter tears of the fallen star?
However, that's not all. This text is an allusion to the bible: specifically, Revelation 8:10-11, and Revelation 9:1-3
This describes an anthropomorphized fallen star (called upon by an angel), who helps to bring about the apocalypse and turns the world dark. While the text from Deltarune is clearly referencing this, it also seems to confirm that the "fallen star" is the Roaring Knight, considering their role as an apocalyptic harbinger who will cover the world in darkness.
But what the hell does that have to do with Gaster?
Gaster has been known to have a ton of surrounding biblical imagery ever since the early days of Undertale. A heavy association with the number 666 (the mark of the beast/the devil) has always been present and is emphasized to this day. Not to mention that in christian bible, the devil is a literal fallen angel. And Gaster has a history of falling...
Fallen stars and fallen angels? I couldn't tell you what that means, but it sure as hell feels significant. Especially given that the angels in Revelation are the one to call down the star.
Also, you may or may not be familiar with a very obscure line of error-handling dialogue in Deltarune's code:
"Is that a cut on your face, or a part of your eye?
The gash weaves down as if you cry
The pain itself is reason why."
Which seems to be directly referencing the Mysteryman sprite from Undertale, which is popularly and rightfully theorized to be our only known appearance of Gaster. These two both have gobs of biblical imagery, and imagery specifically relating to tears.
It's ESPECIALLY relevant because of how we now understand the tears of the "fallen star" to potentially be the origins of ShadowCrystals. It's been speculated for some time as to who is handing out ShadowCrystals, or if they somehow form on their own (which is possible: there's some evidence that they form In General from the tears/sorrow of Lightners, which is supported by Seam's dialogue about the crystal in the NEO body). BUT it's been speculated heavily by others that the Knight themself is giving ShadowCrystals.
What do all of our ShadowCrystals have in common? We get them from fighting secret bosses! And in particular, Jevil and Spamton likely had direct contact with Gaster, which is why it's still speculated that maybe Gaster is the one giving out the ShadowCrystals.
(I am aware that some people think that it was IMAGE_FRIEND who contacted Jevil and Spamton, but I will not be entertaining that hypothesis due to a lack of any compelling evidence)
Personally, I think it's more likely for the time being that while Gaster definitely contacted Jevil and Spamton, the ShadowCrystals came from somewhere else. Either from the Knight, or perhaps formed from something.
And just for a cherry on top in case you aren't convinced by any of this: we know that the Knight is hiding out in the Shelter. The Shelter is surrounded by an ambient droning noise. When slowed by by 666% (the Gaster number), it is revealed to be mus_smile.ogg (the sound that playing during Entry Number 17 in Undertale). So one could imagine how Gaster and the Knight might've bumped into each other at some point.
My master conclusion here is this, vague as it may be:
Gaster is to the Knight as Gerson is to Susie.
I believe Gaster and the Knight are a sort of dark reflection of Gerson and Susie. I believe the Knight is explicitly associated with Gaster---and while I don't think it's likely that the Knight is "working for" Gaster (largely being Gaster has not shown evidence of having any hard goals), the Knight has taken inspiration/advice/resources from Gaster for their own plans in the future.
Also, I think the Knight is Dess, but that's not exactly controversial.
