29 - He/him - Brazillian - Typer of Things - The Echo in Your Chamber, the Shit in Your Post - I like Deltarune and Pokemon and Fire Emblem the regular amount
What If The Shadow Crystals Are Not Determination?
Well that's a silly question. Of course they are Determination. Seam said so!
Not quite, though. They said they were made from the power of "will", before doubling back and correcting themself by calling that power something else. Something we didn't get to see.
It's certainly IMPLIED. But until the official UT/DR Bluesky account goes ☐☐☐☐☐☐ tomorrow and proves me wrong next week, we don't know.
It's not like we call our little canine overlord Straightforward Tony, after all.
But then, what else could they even be? And why?
Well, I've been thinking a little bit. About darkness and about light. You can thank Andrew Cunningham for this one.
What is DETERMINATION? What does it do, in Deltarune?
It is the power, present in all Lightners, to pour their will into a blade and make. To stab into the earth and draw out darkness, and from the purest vagueness of dreams, create a Dark World.
What it isn't, however, is the ability to save and reload. Every save point ("the light only you can see") makes a very particular point to not name the exact "power" that it fills you with.
Likewise, the track that plays when the light emitted by the SOUL closes a fountain or banishes the Titan is simply called "Your Power"
This vague other "power" seems to be closely related to the concept of Light.
So, if Darkness is tied to Determination and to the creation of a narrative, then what is related to Light?
If Darkness is Dreams, then what is the white pen of Hope?
Darkness, and by extension Determination, seem to be related to the ability to create, to make. And in doing so, they place us on the set path of a narrative. Dark Worlds even tend to be pretty linear, as opposed to the generally more open-ended Light World. And the consequence for excessive darkness is the ultimate fate of the world, the catastrophe spoken of in glass, the Roaring.
In the dark, only blind eyes can see the path forward. But then how can you know there's any other path?
Meanwhile, what does Light allow us to do? It allows us to end the narrative, if we choose to see it through to the end. And it allows us to revert any progress we made, whether to do it over and over again or to see what we can do differently.
Darkness shows us the path laid before us.
Light, the white pen of hope that cuts through the ocean of ink, allow us to change our fate.
Determination is the power to stand strong against adversity, to remain true to who we are, and to maintain our will against all odds.
The power to exert our will upon the world, to change a future that doesn't suit us and choose our destiny, is Agency.
This may sound a bit strange, of course. Gerson straight up told us that the light blinds us from seeing any other way forward, and that the spaces in between, where it's darker, are the better way to go.
But the path of blinding light is only there because it was traced before, right? Someone or something, whether fate or the Angel, a former royal scientist or a little white dog, had the Agency to create this path that we follow. So if we want to subvert that, much like Frisk's Determination overpowering Flowey's, we need to hold greater Agency than the creator.
And for that, we need to look into the gaps they left behind. The darkness where there is no light.
The shadow, to be purified by the cat.
The Pure Crystal, once acquired, will be the true form of the Shadow Crystals. The crystallized will of the tears from the fallen star will give us the full power of Light.
Agency. The will to carve our own path. The power to see the happy end we Hope for.
Although, I suppose all of this still works if it turns out the Shadow Crystals ARE Determination. Maybe Agency is built into it as well. I still think it's something separate, the wording on the save points and the "Your Power" track is too specifically vague to make me think Light is Determination. But still, in the end, I guess my idea was closer to:
What if the Shadow Crystals are NOT made of Shadow, but of Light?
So, was there any point to all of this?
As a matter of fact? Maybe.
Because if the Pure Crystal gives us greater power of Light, if Agency is the [Hyperlink blocked] that Spamton craved so much (and that would bring him closer to HEAVEN), and if that's all tied to the power to change the narrative for the better in a major way, then I have an idea of what it may allow us to do.
The Light we already have lets us use our save files.
Perhaps a greater Light can let us use Kris'.
The plot of chapter 5 was that Ralsei had crippling depression and didn't want to live or be a hero anymore. So a chalk outline of Chapter 1 Ralsei walks in and introduces himself as his clone, Ralmsei. The rest of the chapter was just Kris and Susie following Ralmsei around and listening to him, trying to figure out how to help Ralsei. There were no enemies and no other NPCs, it was all Ralmsei all the time.
The Light World section was a murder mystery, but Kris is a teenager so they couldn't do anything about it. So you just walked around and occasionally found Asgore doing things before going "C'mon, Kris, you know you shouldn't be here. Go home now, ok?" and teleporting you back to Kris' room.
I then woke up (still in the dream), relieved it was just a dream, but I was like "Of course it wasn't real, we haven't even had the Gaster Twitter Takeover (tm) yet" and immediately went back to sleep (which is the least realistic part of all this)
I then proceeded to dream of people on Tumblr and Discord going:
When it comes to Deltarune and the topic of self-indulgent fantasy, I think it's easy to read the story as being critical on the topic. After all, we're playing in a realistic world where fantastic lands keep popping out of nowhere, and the job of our heroes is to track these lands down and destroy them, because opening too many at once will destroy the world.
At first glance, it does sound like the story is saying "fantasy is dangerous and inherently selfish; you must learn to 'grow up'"' and leave it behind." Especially since this is a common topic in children's fantasy stories, and the plot we've played through so far does at least partly agree with them - most obviously at the end of Chapter 2, where the protagonists' pursuit of escapism would have destroyed the world directly if it weren't for one character's intervention.
But wait. If that's the case, why does the story seem so positive about the idea of fantasy? After all, our characters are literally being guided on a noble quest by a mysterious guide at the behest of an ancient prophecy. And one of the mentors they meet is a fantasy author who encourages people to be creative and take ideas from their dreams. Take another look, and it gets even more complicated: many of the "real world" adults are trapped in fantasies of their own, refusing to let go of a past that's dead and gone, while the characters who denounce fantasy as something that is dead and worthless are consistently lonely and miserable.
So what's the message here? Is fantasy good, or is it bad? Is it good for kids but bad for adults? Is it only good "in moderation"? And the answer is... none of the above.
Fantasy isn't inherently good or bad. In fact, it isn't even the topic on the table. The actual topic, and the problem that the Dark Worlds are working to resolve, is attachment to an idea that is causing more harm than good. And those can be anything at all - from an impossible fantasy to hardline "realism".
The first example we encounter is Susie. A kid who, due to reasons almost completely outside of her control, has earned a reputation as a "troublemaker" and basically given up on being able to do anything to fix it. Not because she hates people or wants to hurt them - but because everything good she does for herself has a way of ending in punishment, so she's learned to avoid caring about herself as much as possible to minimize the inevitable pain.
That might sound practical, but it's actually a form of avoidance - making choices that minimize your immediate problems, but don't actually fix the root that's causing them. And that is the entire point: problems don't go away as long as you keep avoiding them. Susie's life doesn't get better until she takes a chance on friendship.
But she also couldn't really do that, until she had a safe space to try without risking severe consequences. That's where the fantasy world of the Card Kingdom came in: it offered a safe environment where she didn't have the pressures of hunger and expulsion hanging over her head, and could afford to take chances without the fear of major consequences.
The same thing happens in Chapter 2, with Noelle. Her adventure in Cyber City helps her to become braver, overcoming her fear of mice and preparing her to finally give Berdly a proper rejection. And in chapter 3, despite sleeping through the whole thing, it's Toriel's sentimentality - her longing for the comfort of the days when her family was intact, and failure to realize that she can't keep treating Kris like a small child - that informs Tenna's behavior and has to be resolved.
(Doing this precipitates a massive turnaround in her - the very next day, she's getting rid of the old TV, loaning out Asriel's old clothes to Susie, and inviting Sans over for drinks and dancing. Toriel has finally let go of her old life, and is ready to let in new people and new opportunities.)
In other words, none of these Dark Worlds were actually escapist fantasies. They were therapy sessions, and the reason that we close them is because the session is over.
andrew cunningham's deltarune analysis videos are perhaps my favourite ones (i do really love stuffed alpaca's ones too and vivat veritas has always got something interesting to say), and i think the reasons for that are pretty succinctly summarised by some things i remember him saying, in a comment response stream for the knights conspiracy video.
lots of people objected to his conclusion that the phone caller is carol. their reasoning was often based wholly on the fact that we cant hear litterally everythig the caller says, so maybe they actually said the complete opposite of what we think. but thats a useless analysis because all the text from the caller is coherent, we can derive full meaning from everything we can hear, so to assume thats not what they are saying is to assume toby fox is lying to us, and as andrew said, you cannot derive useful analysis by assuming we are being lied to, but also, if toby is genuinely trying to decieve us, then reaching the conclusion he wants us to reach is a success. andrew's entire objective with his analysis is to understand what the game is trying to tell us.
and that feels weird to point that out, right? i mean surely thats a foundational part of any theorycrafting, but my problem with most deltarune theory videos is that they dont act like this; when i watch a random video about the kris slash theory, its goal is to convince me of that theory and nothing else; when i watch andrew's video about kris' soul(s?), its goal is to asses and understand what the game says about kris and use that to draw conclusions.
i dont think theres anything wrong with liking those kind of videos, im sure they can be fun to watch, but i just cant do it (autism i guess).
since I’m thinking about this instead of studying for bar prep:
people in general tend to assume that a person who’s been arrested is either innocent or guilty. and if they’re guilty, then they deserve fewer rights than the innocent person.
like, if the police break into an innocent person’s house and look for drugs, we recognize that it’s a bad thing and a gross violation of rights. but if the police break into someone’s house and do find drugs, well, that’s just what they deserved. we’d all be upset if the police started randomly murdering people on the street for no reason, but many wouldn’t mind if the police started randomly killing known child molesters. it’s not okay if the police plant evidence to frame an innocent man for murder, but if they know he’s the murderer and plant evidence to help the case along? well, that’s unfortunate but necessary.
there are three problems with this:
You cannot always know with certainty who’s innocent and who’s guilty;
A two-tiered “innocent” and “guilty” legal structure will always be used against innocent marginalized people;
Even guilty people have rights.
this happens a lot on tumblr. not exclusively on tumblr (it’s also a major aspect of most “gritty” police dramas and almost all comics), but it’s definitely there. like, calls to summarily execute rapists sound great in theory, because we all agree that rape is evil. except for when it’s used to kill innocent black men who looked the wrong way at a white woman.
and there are people who will say that no, of course, the problem isn’t summarily killing rapists, the problem is summarily killing the wrong people (that is, innocent people). which, again, you can’t know who’s innocent and who’s guilty - lots of innocent people aren’t sweet old ladies who’ve never done anything wrong, or have perfect alibis and never contradict themselves. hell, being guilty of a crime in the past doesn’t mean that they committed this specific crime that they’ve been accused of.
and even if they are guilty - even if they are stone-cold, unrepentantly guilty - they still have rights. that’s what “innocent until proven guilty” means. it means that stripping someone of their legal rights is a big fucking deal, so no matter how guilty Obvious McCriminal looks, you still have to follow the rules we’ve set in place to prevent abuses.
like, it’s not that every person who’s ever been treated shittily by police and the court system is actually innocent, so therefore the system is bad. it’s that we have a system that treats people like shit once we’ve decided they’re guilty, regardless of when the decision is made, and we’re okay with that. after conviction? definitely. after arrest? yup. before arrest, because we just have a feeling about them? sure.
and I get why people make posts or write stories about guilty people being treated badly. wanting vengeance is a powerful emotion. grief and anger are powerful emotions. it is not unnatural to want to hurt people who have hurt others. people like the idea of karma, of cosmic scales balancing out the hurt and suffering inflicted by a person by making them suffer back. I’m not saying that no one is allowed to have those feelings.
I’m just saying that there are implications behind them that are deeply disturbing (“if I decide you’re guilty, you’re less of a person to me”) and that it’s the primary driving force behind most of the issues in our criminal justice system.
actually, since this post has become relevant (again), I’d like everyone to join me in a little thought experiment: why do the police bring up a murdered person’s criminal record when they are extrajudicially killed?
like, we can all agree that the sentence for drug possession, drunk driving, trespassing, etc. is not execution, and even if it was, that’s after they’ve been arrested and convicted. cops are not judges, so it’s not their call to decide if someone is guilty or to punish them for it. so why does it matter if someone is “a known criminal,” or if they have drugs in their system, or if they have a gun on their person?
“well, obviously it’s to bias the public against the person who was killed,” you might say. okay, but why is that?
it’s because they know that we think of guilty people as less than human, and innocent people as blameless. therefore the murdered person deserved to die (because guilty people deserve what they get), and the cop is innocent (he was just trying to protect people!). if it didn’t work as a tactic, then they wouldn’t do it!
it is this mindset that permits the police to murder. we cannot stop police violence unless we dismantle the idea that being guilty of a crime negates your humanity and your civil rights.
Like everyone else, I am waiting in fear of the inevitable Susie crashout that will occur when she learns that Kris is both possessed and a traitor. And while I do think that "this means I've never had any real friends" will be a part of it, I don't think that'll necessarily be the first thing Susie jumps to in anger. Susie's developed a lot since ch1 and she's more aware than we give her credit for. I also think realistically, in a situation where you find out your first real friend has been possessed by an eldritch time-god for your entire friendship, the more immediate reaction would be more at the "then who the fuck have I been interacting with?" part than the "rejection" part. There's "having no real friends", and then there's realizing the person who you thought was your real friend was actually fucking Cthulu.
Warning: I am about to descend into complete, wild speculation here. Mostly, I'm not really afraid of that outcome because I have an even bigger Susie-related Fear. As of now, with Ralsei still hiding his knowledge and Kris working with the Knight, and them both having ulterior motives for completing "main" DW adventures, Susie is the only character whose goals align with the player's. She's the one whose main objective is sealing fountains, befriending Darkners, and stopping the Roaring in the same way ours is. I am TERRIFIED that, when Kris's betrayal and possession come to light, Susie will correctly perceive us as "still on her side" and for a time, on better terms with us than Kris. Especially since the soul is so vital to sealing fountains/ beating titans that Susie (and Ralsei?) will probably need the soul to be somehow in their party in order to make any progress. What if Kris, at some point post-betrayal-reveal, leaves the roaring group chat and comes crawling back to the fun gang, who are forced to let Kris back on their team because they need the soul, even though they don't yet forgive Kris? What if Kris is allowed back to the good side under the pretense that Susie is letting back their soul, not them, and that she still hates them, and a guilt-ridden Kris just agrees? and we just have to pilot them around a section of the plot in the world's most miserable silence. Any remotely human-like dialogue option is gone. Kris is back to chapter-one levels of giving us nothing. That's the situation for a short time until Susie decides to forgive Kris. What if there's a section where we're encouraged or Ralsei-triggered to grab control of Kris in a situation where we usually wouldn't, because the FG don't trust Kris to act on their own, but do trust us? Wouldn't that be the worst? I'm losing my marbles. I need chapter five.
there's no universe where I expect susie and ralsei to be best buddies with the blind idiot god azathoth whose puppetting around their friend's body but the fact that us and susie are like two of the only beings with motivations that match even a little regularly makes me Genuinely Afraid of where the hell deltarune is going with that
You know what? Literally everyone is wrong about this Rudinn. All of you are wrong about "Copies are monochrome". This guy isn't "turning into a goner" or whatever bullshit. His colour is fading. Exactly what he says is happening. And, as he says, this is normal.
"Copies are monochrome, but you colored us in with care" doesn't mean "if something is greyscale, it's a copy". We've all been focusing too hard on "copies are monochrome", when really "but you colored us in with care" is the important thing. The 7 Flying Aces are Kris's creations, analogous to Darkners created by a fountain. The colour represents their unique input on the dark world, just like it does with Susie's dark world in chapter 4.
ALL Darkners are coloured in. All Darkners are naturally greyscale. When a Darkner no longer matches up with their creator's vision, they lose their colour and turn to stone. Lancer even partly loses colour before turning to stone in chapter 2! It's the colour! It's all the colour! He wasn't turning grey because he was turning to stone, he was turning to stone because he was turning grey! The colour is what gives Darkners life, without it they're just stone. They have bodies, thanks to the dark fountain, but no life. It's the creator that supplies that.
Before I go into the implications of this reading, I will address the "copies are monochrome" part of the quote, since there's so much theorising about it. In all honesty? I think a printer and copies was just a convenient metaphor to communicate the idea that care is what colours in Darkners. There has to be something in there, but I don't think it's very important. There are enough examples of greyscale things that are very obviously not copies that I really don't think the few that are should be focused on. There's the Goners, New Home, and the Vessel, and I think that's about it for copies. Let's just say that copies are monochrome, but not all monochrome things are copies. The monochrome means something else, a lack of care.
Now, what does all of this mean for our friend Bluedinn?
Bad. Bad things. This means Bluedinn is in the process of turning to stone. In Castle Town. That might be extremely bad holy shit.
This is the Rudinn who talks to you about "your Town's love", and knows the Soul's name. Why is it the only one to lose colour? I think the "Town's love" thing is about the dark world's "colour", as in the creator's will. The more Darkners you recruit, the more colourful (literal colour) and lively the town gets. So that makes sense for this guy. It might even have implications for who created the Castle Town fountain. The Rudinn says in chapter 2 that "this is a dream that grows with love and care", and heavily implies that the Castle Town fountain's colour comes from the Player. So... Either it was made by Gaster or it's just a natural phenomena. Idk, this isn't really concrete so I don't care about that.
As for why only this Rudinn is losing colour... Maybe it's because it mentioned our name? That somewhat breaks the Player's immersion as Kris, and might make us care just a little bit less about this specific Rudinn. But... I don't know. Maybe it doesn't actually matter and this Rudinn is just the first to lose colour.
Either way, this might mean that in later chapters, if you don't recruit enough Darkners, the ones you do recruit might end up turning to stone in Castle Town.
But enough about that boring shit... What does this mean for W.D GASTER!??!?!?!?!?!
Ummmmm. It's 2AM and I'm running out of steam fast. I think Gaster might be like, an uncaring force. He experimented with dark worlds, maybe he did it without putting in a colour? And so the goners are like his... Darkners? maybe? Uhhhhh. Ok yeah you can ignore this part for now. I'm going to bed, maybe I'll continue this tomorrow. Sorry if this post is confusing or like. missing words somewhere. my brain is starting to hurt so I can't proofread right now or I'll die. Oh yeah i wanted to talk about the grey area in man country too... yknow the one from 67 theory... that can wait also. goodnight
This is a theory that, previously, I felt very iffy on, but have come to believe more firmly over time. I'd like to thank my friend @mr---person for assisting with theorycrafting this and coming up with parts of this.
In order to get to the actual idea being proposed here, I have to get some context out of the way first, so without further ado, let's begin. This is a bit of a long one, but I think it's well worth it.
PHASE 1: The Sword Route matters
I'm going to start by establishing that the Sword Route is, for whatever reason, important.
You know, the route is weird. When I first learned it was called the "Sword Route", I was kind of put off by it. I felt like the name didn't make much sense. It's more of a sidequest if anything, right?
The main thing I am going to try and establish here is that the Sword Route is more than just an ominous foreshadowing side quest that results in us getting the Shadow Mantle- which is optional armor that merely makes certain fights easier.
See, the more I think about it, the more clear it becomes to me that it is actually that important. For starters- the name itself. It is called a Route. This alone is kind of significance. It's not the mantlequest, it's not the sword quest, it's not S Rank Progress or anything, it's... the Sword Route.
Further, after defeating the Mantleholder ("ERAM" as I will refer to them for the rest of this post for brevity), they declare "We both have work to do!" which somewhat insinuates that we will meet again.
There's also the /chapter5 stuff:
We cannot be absolutely certain, but it does seem that the size of the numbers indicate something akin to "Weird Route prominence". The 2 is massive because the Weird Route exists. The 4 is pretty small because ultimately the Weird Route only changes like, two scenes significantly. The 5 is larger, implying the Weird Route will cause more changes there.
What's fascinating, then, is that the 3 is as big as the 2. Given that the sound effect for clicking on the 3 is the sound that Eram makes, and the "Not applicable, but..." text from /chapter3, it seems to me that the reason the 3 is so big is because of the Sword Route.
If you ask me, the Sword Route on its own kind of doesn't even get close to Ch2's variations. Sure, it's something that affects the entire playthrough of the chapter, but, like, it doesn't really affect the main story at all, and seems pretty self contained on the surface.
It's also not even part of the Weird Route, nor the Crystal Path, strictly speaking... and yet, it's as big as the 2, which is... fascinating.
I think, though, the biggest slam dunk for the Sword Route being "Important" is, of all places, found in Jackenstein's fight.
See, one of the boards used for Jackenstein's attacks is this:
Those who have come before me have pointed out that the symbols in the background can be interpretted as symbols of key things in DELTARUNE.
There are two crowns, one of which highly resembles the chess symbol for a queen, there's a chess knight, a tower of some sort, a flower, and a dagger/sword.
Some have interpreted the Sword has a symbol for Chapter 6, but I don't actually think that's accurate.
A more niche interpretation of this is that it's actually a map.
You start on the King crown.
You can either pass through the Queen (the Purple line) or skip the Queen (the Cyan line).
You can optionally touch the Sword on the way to The Knight.
But, no matter what, you must pass the Knight, then the Tower, then the Flower, then collect the key.
If you don't allow line intersections, then the Sword also must come before The Knight. (You can of course go right and then down from The Knight, but this would require you to double back.)
When you recall that you actually skip Queen entirely on the Weird Route, I actually feel very confident in this interpretation. You can skip Queen, but you can't skip King, Knight, Titan, or the Ch5 boss.
I think, then, that the meaning of the sword is obvious- it's the Sword Route. You can optionally collect the Sword on the way to The Knight.
To me, the fact that the Sword Route is represented at all in this sort of symbolic representation of the game's general mapping is kind of massive. This, if nothing else, has me absolutely convinced The Sword Route does deserve its name, even if we cannot understand fully what is significant about it.
So, now that we can be pretty confident the Sword Route matters, I think we should start looking into everything we know about it in order to try and predict where it's going next.
PHASE 2: ERAM
This is going to be a re-treading of my prior remarks on Eram.
If you've already read my previous post about that, you can skip this section without issue. I actually go into more detail in that post, but I'm going to summarize my thoughts here. If you find this analysis interesting, please go check out that post, too.
Basically: I think the Eram fight is "about" the Kris/Player dynamic.
ERAM is able to do actual, real damage to Kris. They physically recoil whenever it happens. If Kris were trying to beat ERAM alone, they would surely fail, especially if they only had one try. One single hit would likely snowball into several more, and trying to perform well while actively being shocked would be effectively impossible. And, ultimately, barring potential Kris SAVE File shenanigans, one death is all Kris has- Eram kills you for real.
This is where the Player comes in- we are able to focus entirely on the game itself, learning the fight, issuing commands to Kris.
We, too, could not beat this fight alone- On some level, we need Kris to even play the game to begin with- While we are able to control HERO_SWORD outside of the game, it is ultimately Kris who (of their own accord!) plugs the Oddcontroller in for us, and we see with the Shelter that Kris is able to control HERO_SWORD somewhat- I don't think Kris could just set the controller down.
Ultimately, both parties need to lock in. Kris needs to lock in and push through the pain even though it hurts to execute the commands we're giving them, and we need to focus on the fight itself and funnel our inputs through Kris to attack the enemy.
This, then, is why Eram remarks about the burning red flames in Kris' eyes, because the only way we beat them is by working together.
Basically, I think the fight is about The Player and Kris. The fact that Kris is an autonomous person who has their own ideas and goals is, sometimes, a hindrance, and gets in our way when they do their own thing- but, at the same time, it can be a strength, as our ability to directly command our vessel seems rather limited. It's Kris who is able to plug in the oddcontroller, for instance. We can't actually direct Kris to use items in that way directly.
With this general interpretation of the Eram fight established, I'm going to take a further moment to look into the other character relevant for the Sword Route, who I think we tend to overlook: Ramb.
PHASE 3: RAMB ANALYSIS
Ramb, Ramb, Ramb... There's a lot we could say about Ramb, but I'll try to keep it brief and focused on what we're actually interested in today.
It's been suggested at times that Eram and Ramb are one and the same. I don't think this is the case.
The thing is...Ramb doesn't know, like, anything. To me, that's kind of what defines him. He talks big game, he talks about Freedom and Big Shots and about how the Original Game is everything Kris dreams of, and yet... he doesn't really seem to be connected to the deeper mysteries.
He doesn't have a Shadow Crystal, and while he talks big game about freedom, unlike with, say, Spamton, we don't really get the impression Ramb knows specifically what Kris is dealing with.
Ramb makes a big point of saying how he wants what's best for Kris, and that Kris will love the original game more... but is that even true?
Kris... doesn't exactly seem super enthused by the game. They look pale at times, especially when we kill the HERO_AXE and HERO_SCARF, and they kind of almost die to Eram.
Ramb also talks big game about how the Original Game has real freedom, and isn't just a linear quest from A to B... except, if anything, MANTLE is actually more linear than The Legend of Tenna.
Both games have explicit, defined objectives- in MANTLE, it's to GET STRONGER and kill every enemy to eventually obtain the item at the end. In TLOT, it's to collect the various items around the map to eventually get to the Physical Challenge.
The thing is, The Legend of Tenna actually does give you choice. There's always more objectives than are necessary. You only need 3 keys, but there are actually 4 (5 on replays!). You only need 3 pictures, but there are 4 you can get. You can choose which ones to get.
Comparatively, in MANTLE, you simply have to defeat every enemy. The only meaningful choice that Mantle provides you is that you can choose to die and stop playing.
This is, perhaps, a larger discussion, but my point is that Ramb is kind of just... wrong, about the original game being more free. And even if he was correct, Kris doesn't seem to be enjoying it that much.
I do actually think Kris wants to keep playing, but it's not because the game itself is Fun, but rather because Kris is searching for the Crystals and likely believes that this may lead to one. (There's more I could say on this but I don't have the time to.)
It's also quite clear I think that Ramb doesn't know anything about what's really going on backstage.
For starters, there's no reason to believe Ramb gave Kris the OddController. Surely he would have taken credit for giving it to us, since he prides himself on doing what's best for Kris. Also, he was keeping watch for Tenna.
Further, after Board 2, he denies anyone else being Backstage, and seems confused when Kris asks:
Which, sure, could be him lying, but I really don't think he is.
In general, while Ramb does want to help Kris, I think it's quite clear he doesn't really understand the greater ramifications of what Kris is dealing with. I really don't think Ramb knows what the Shadow Crystals are, and I really can't see him being, say, Eram in secret. Eram seems way too knowledgeable in a way Ramb simply isn't.
What is perhaps the most interesting about Ramb, though, is what happens to him at the end of the route. For the third Board, Ramb is almost fully petrified.
He asks us to push him out of the way because he can't move, and we carry on. This is actually really emphasized. There's like a whole animation of him being pushed and everything.
Toby could have just had him already be in position for us to walk past, or something, but, no, he's in the way and must be pushed.
What is fascinating, then, is that... he's not there anymore when we're done.
He's just gone. No trace. This is never explained. There is only one piece of information we are given, and I want to spend some time specifically on this point, because it's very important.
PHASE 4: WTF HAPPENED TO RAMB???
No, seriously, what? He's just gone. In the normal route, he's petrified in his little booth, but, in the Sword Route, he just entirely disappears.
The only piece of information we're given is from this Rabbick NPC in the backstage area:
This Rabbick claims to have seen something relating to Ramb, but gets sidetracked by Kris' appearance, questioning that they just went past.
I have seen many interpretations of this line, with some people suggesting that HERO_SWORD killed Ramb as they left. This is a bit questionable, since surely the Rabbick would be terrified of Kris if they just saw "Kris" kill Ramb, but, there's something much more important here I seldom see talked about.
How did this Rabbick even see anything?
I don't have a good map of the area, so forgive me for the bad quality here, but, remember:
Ramb is a statue over at the X. The Rabbick is out in the hall.
How did this Rabbick see anything relating to Ramb?
They're in different rooms. There's like, 2 corners between them, and a closed door, and the Rabbick is down the hall. How did they see something relating to Ramb, especially when it is explicitly told (and shown) to us that Ramb actively cannot move.
I think the implication simply has to be that he was taken. He was kidnapped. Something moved him. There's really no other way to slice it. The question is... why? Who would do this?
This is where we leave the realm of grounded speculation and have to "live a little" so to speak. I might lose you here, but please, hear me out.
PHASE 5: THE ERAMB AGENDA
I am going to propose the following:
Eram is, on some level, some sort of spirit that requires a host
It was originally using the Shadow Mantle as its host when we find it in Chapter 3.
After we defeat Eram, it needs a new vessel.
It chooses Ramb as its new target, stealing him in the process. Eramb.
This is generally unsubstantiated, but I think it actually makes a lot of sense.
For starters: The Eram boss we fight is purely referred to as "Shadow Mantle" in the game. Not, like, MantleHolder, they're just Shadow Mantle. It's arguable how much we should read into this, but given that the speaker says they're "holding" the mantle, a direct interpretation of the mantle itself being alive feels weird. However, if we're saying the Mantle is being puppeteered or otherwise controlled, this makes more sense.
Secondly: Why is Ramb a plugboy? It's a strange design choice. I suppose it's relevant to his backstory of specifically not being a typical toy, but it's a bit of an oddity. Werewires/plugboys have the recurring theme of being controlled, which feels perfect for this kind of narrative.
It could just be nothing, but it feels fascinating to me that Ramb is specifically a species known for having a second, stronger transformation they can be turned into when controlled by something else.
Thematically, I think this also has a lot of potential as well. If we were to do battle with this were-Eramb form as a 1v1, then Eramb kind of functions as a parallel to Kris.
Kris and The Player vs Ramb and Eram.
The difference being, of course, that at this point so late in the story, Kris and The Player will likely be allies, whereas Ramb is the biggest Kris fan of all time and would do anything in his power to resist and help them. If you buy into the Eram analysis from earlier, this is a direct extension of what the Eram fight was already doing in my eyes.
In a sense, Eramb I think would be a 'dark' reflection of what we could do with Kris, forcing them to act against their will- the sort of thing we actually do do in the Weird Route.
Additionally, consider that Ramb would almost certainly be using Electric Attacks in this form.
And, well, wouldn't you know it, but there's an unused armor called the Sky Mantle that provides resistance to Elec/Holy attacks:
It's stats are kind of... abysmal, but 50% resist to Elec would probably be worth it in a fight like this, especially a 1v1 with Kris. Plus, who knows, if it does get used, it could easily be rebalanced. It feels fitting to me to use another elemental mantle against Eram when it was our defeat of Eram that provided us with the Shadow Mantle to begin with.
Overall, I think the idea of Eram using Ramb as a vessel for a rematch later on is fitting enough thematically and Could work...
PHASE 5.5: MANOR SIDE THOUGHT
I simply must continue my Holiday Manor Chapter 6 Agenda, and point out that Eram's "Secret Hiding Place" is specifically within the Ice Palace. It could make sense, then, that we cross paths with Eram once more in Chapter 6 if the Manor Dark World conspiracy pans out....
PHASE 6: THE TRUTHNUKE
I was already well aware of the Wer-Eramb agenda before, but I didn't consider it that likely. It was a fun idea, and while I hadn't heard the player specific arguments before, it felt like it was missing something.
But, you see, I have come to a horrifying realization. A realization that makes me unreasonably confident that it's happening. Maybe it's nothing, maybe I'm reading into things too much, but this final detail is the one that made me convinced I absolutely had to make this into a longer post.
The Freedom Motif.
It's in Jevil's, Spamton's, and Gerson's music. This makes sense. Further, for every battle with the Freedom Motif, the flavor text "The air crackles with freedom", or some variation, is part of the fight.
It is worth noting that The Knight lacks both the Freedom Motif and this flavor text, suggesting the two are indeed linked. It's not just cute phrasing- they're connected, or perhaps even somehow the same.
There is another instance of this sort of language being used, and it's with the Sound of Justice, the strange Gerson statue we do battle with in the Second Sanctuary.
This time, it's "The air crackles with sound". This makes sense, since the Sound of Justice is directly connected to Gerson, who is a secret boss, but the Sound of Justice itself is not a secret boss.
But...
Wouldn't you know it?
There is one other instance in this game of the game saying the air crackles with something.
And, of all places... it's when you use Susie's ACT against Werewerewire.
Look.
I was aware that this existed for a long time now.
But I always wrote it off as a coincidence. But when you consider it in the context of Eramb, it feels to me like a slam dunk. You can argue that this isn't actually flavor text, per se, but rather narration describing the effects of an ACT- but honestly, I don't care. This, to me, is the nail in the coffin, a detail hidden in plain sight.
And when you actually look into Werewerewire more... You start to see something else.
Werewerewire specifically is a Werewire that has absorbed the wire- fused with that which controls it- to become stronger.
It. Became. Stronger.
And, regular Werewire's check, too, how is that described?
It's sleepwalking through a nightmare. "Nightmare" is used in relation to certain assets relating to the mantle fight, and while this may just be a reference to the Links Awakening fight of comparable nature and name, "ERAM" itself is just "MARE" backwards. I think a connection between Nightmares and Eram is pretty solid.
CONCLUSION
Look. I'm sorry. I've seen the light. It's just happening. I can't un-see it. You can say that this isn't that strong of a connection, you can say it's a coincidence, but...
The way the Sword Route itself is clearly more important than we might think?
The way Ramb just completely disappears, with the circumstances being specific enough to where we can be reasonably certain he was taken?
The fact that Ramb is specifically a darkner type known for being controlled by other things?
The fact that the ultimate form of said Darkner literally references the air crackles with freedom, and has SWORD-Route/Weird-Route style language?
The fact that doing this would perfectly follow up what, in my eyes, the overall thematic purpose of the Eram fight is?
So. When we first enter the Second Sanctuary in Chapter 4, a few things immediately become apparent.
And that's...pretty much everything is wrong. The place is the wrong color now, mechanics don't *quite* work the same in the puzzle rooms. What were once NPCs have become statues and vice versa. Even those NPCs, the Philosophers, talk about how we now exist on The Other Side of the Mind, amongst alot of other cryptic shit. It's also the side of the mind we find the Egg Room on which is...just....so weird and confusing I don't have time I DON'T HAVE TIME!
As said, the first Philosopher you meat calls this phenomenon, "the Color of the Mind" and says it's changed. I did some deep thinking for a bit and I can only come to the conclusion that the only thing that can change this Color of the Mind is simply who made the Dark World. This Dark World, the only one we've been in where things are so radically weird, was Susie's making. When it's dispersed and we enter the Third Sanctuary by opening the door, the two previous sanctuaries merge into one another, which is a whole question on how Dark World and Time work that may tie into Always Alive theory and once again I DO NOT HAVE TIME!
Point is, when Susie makes a dark world it is a far cry different than the world that the Knight made first before we came here.
...So why is it, when we know for a functional fact that Kris made the TV World Dark Fountain at the end of Chapter 2 and through Chapter 3...that it has the same color as every other Dark World before it. Every Dark World that, with the exception of whatever is going on with the Grand Fountain in the supply closet (that's its own can of worms we're not gonna touch right now), we know the Knight made.
Why do Kris and the Knight have the same Color of the Mind?
Now, we do know that there were already alot of parallels between the Knight and Kris. They have similar poses and stuff, we've discussed this stuff to death in this fandom, you know this stuff. My theory is that those minor hints of connection are further enforced by this idea of the Color of the Mind that truly unifies them.
From what I've seen there's a fairly solid theory I can't remember the name of, but it involves the Knight either having Kris' soul while being Dess' body, which isn't a bad theory. It even explains where Kris' soul is. But I have an...alternative.
And it comes from our favorite forgettable spark plug that noone will shed a tear for.
Yeah this relates back to my older theory about Kris and Dess being the ones who played pretend infront of the screen. My theory is that these two share this Color of the Mind because they created this fiction together. Kris made their OCs and so did Dess. Dess made a playing card, the jack of clubs, into a tri-headed beast with three shards of her own personality, while she also made a bossy queen robot out of a laptop, who's motherly charms were very much cobbled from both the mothers she had in her life (Carol and Toriel to be clear).
As far as we can tell, the Second Sanctuary is Susie's first ever attempt at making anything creative. It's pretty clear she's never really been able to be a kid, or even a teen, having to be this image of badass mean girl bully that she never wanted to be. So no matter how much her and Kris are matching freaks, she's just not the same as Dess. Someone who saw what happens when you lay your soul bear in the form of collaborative fiction.
But then, when the Third Sanctuary happens when the two Dark Worlds mix, suddenly they're compatible. The NPCs from both world exist now, together, much to their own confusions. Susie's color may be different, but that doesnt' mean the two can't play well together. :D
What does this all mean? Well I do think it's yet further proof, at least in my head, that Dess is the Knight, in some way or form. Remnant or dead body or fully just in it, Dess is in that armor somewhere. And Kris, dear Kris, they cared about her very deerly (:p)
Enough to form a pretty loose interest in the occult with the local occult interested goth catgirl (every town has at least one of those.)
Enough to use that relationship to summon a "demon", a red heart that they, Kris, give their own name to, instead of the vessel a different being was going to give us, though I doubt they know about that.
Enough to give that demon (most) control over their body and autonomy, to let it do what needs to be done, because they can't do it alone.
Enough to seek out these Shadow Crystals, these strange glass things that have some weird power we don't understand yet.
Is it from guilt about whatever happened at the Roots of this? Partially. But for someone who so matches your Color of the Mind, would you do any less?
Good luck Kris. I'll be right next to you the whole way. No matter how many times you hit me with a hockey puck.
Dess’ disappearance intensified abusive behaviors that Carol already had, but Dess is also a victim of abuse. This is essential I think to understanding Dess’ character, ergo the Knight, and what led up to Dess’ disappearance.
Long post ahead.
Queen is a parallel to Carol— there’s probably people who’ve explained that in relation to Noelle much better then I have. So, Sweet Cap’n Cakes saying this about Queen— specifically in relation to Queen getting worse after the Knight appeared— is very very telling. Honestly, you can skip the rest of this if need be, the rest of this is just further beating the nail in the coffin. Given how Rudy describes Carol being abusive towards Noelle as Carol being “hard on her,” harsh means abusive in context to how Carol interacted with her daughters.
Anyways, let’s look at Dess herself. One of the only things we know about Dess’ wants as a character is that she wants to leave Hometown and take her sister someplace that is the exact opposite of Hometown. Huge, technologically advanced, and apparently Dess said this to Noelle on a regular basis.
Dess wanting to go somewhere new doesn’t mean she’s being abused by Carol inherently. But, Dess “always” said this according to Noelle, seeming to imply that Dess talked and thought about wanting to leave very frequently. Cyber City is also the exact opposite of Hometown. It’s huge with tons of people and technologically advanced.
Carol also is the mayor of Hometown— so, to summarize… Dess wanted to leave Hometown very very badly, and with her mother as the mayor, wanted to go somewhere the exact opposite of the environment Carol had cultivated.
This is one of the first tastes of how Dess relates to the games themes of escapism— Dess specifically as someone who intended to leave a controlling environment, and while stuck there, kept fantasies of leaving as a way to keep herself afloat. This also isn’t the only example of Dess having a tendency to use escapism.
I go more in depth about this in another post, but, to summarize, Dess had a fake band that was actually just composed of herself where she made GarageBand punk songs because her mother wouldn’t get her an electric guitar. She makes posters for shows for this fake band. Though I want to put attention onto the posters specifically… Her making posters for shows that didn’t happen makes me believe she was pretty fixated on this idea of leaving. To the point of where she made posters for a time period she wasn’t even at yet.
I’d also like to call attention to the amount of hobbies Dess has. Dess plays at least 5 (guitar, drums, trumpet, flute, violin) instruments, 6 if you count singing (the microphone), 7 if you think Dess knew how to play the piano. Then onto the sports she played. Dess played 3 different sports, baseball, hockey, and figure skating.
Carol is the family’s breadwinner. She was the one buying all these instruments and enlisting Dess in all of these sports. There is absolutely no way that doing this heavy an amount of things would not burn someone out— especially a young teenager! She should not of had to do this much work. It’s proven that constantly doing so much stressed out Dess because of Dess’ usage of weed, which notably, calms the user down. It’s very unlikely that this was all things that Dess chose to do entirely on her own, seeing how Carol is already established to have a tendency to force Noelle into doing things she doesn’t want to do.
Not only that but, Dess doesn’t own an electric guitar. Carol was having Dess play tons of instruments that didn’t align with Dess’ interests, but Dess couldn’t even own the guitar that aligned with what she wanted to play.
I should also point out how Dess is punk. Carol is the main breadwinner of the home, seemingly the source of wealth. Punk is about hating rich people. So, Dess also didn’t seem to like Carol.
Dess also may have had an aversion to the home. Noelle talks about how Dess, Noelle, Kris, and Noelle would explore the forest regularly. With how frequent it’s implied to be, it could be that Dess just didn’t want to be in the house.
So— to summarize… Dess seemed to want to get out of Hometown, and out of her house, and indulged in escapism a lot centered around leaving. Escapism is clinically proven to be a sign of complex trauma, often, child abuse. Dess was being emotionally and physically overworked via the amount of instruments & sports she played. Even if Carol didn’t force her to do these things (which given how she behaves with Noelle, and how some of these instruments are broken, is questionable), she still bought her these things and didn’t intervene when Dess did that to herself. Dess disliked her mother. Carol is already established to be emotionally abusive towards Noelle, and we’ve been told that Queen who parallels Carol “was always this harsh, just, got worse.”
Dess being abused by Carol is obvious, IMO. That doesn’t mean that Carol didn’t love Dess, or didn’t have good intentions, or that Carol isn’t a sympathetic character. But Carol is abusive.
This account is a week old, Dess's room is released 9 months ago and you have already figured out more than half the relationship between an unreleased character and her mother????
This post requires a part 2. And what about Noelle in all of this?
I’m sure that other people have said the same / similar with Dess & Carol before me. Albeit not a lot of them are psychology nerds like I am, so, I have some stuff there to add. But I will say that just because we know Carol was emotionally abusive towards Dess, does not mean we know all of the complexities of their dynamic.
There’s no part 2 for Noelle I’ll make rn, because, it’s fairly cut and dry that Carol is an emotionally abusive mother towards Noelle. I could go through all the signs & explain everything but I feel it’s so obvious that I feel I shouldn’t have too? But maybe I could make a post about Noelle’s potential thoughts on the matter of whatever Dess might’ve went through, if she ever realized what was happening, what have you
I meant part 2 of the Dess analysis, and for Noelle's part something along the lines of Dess and Noelle making up the 2 responses to authoritarian parenting, being rebellion and submission respectively. Sorry for not wording that too well
That’s alright! While this isn’t an in-depth post, I can do that at a later point, and here’s a few thoughts I have on Noelle & Dess’ responses to emotional abuse, since you’re interested. But this isn’t at all the whole sum of it, haha.
I enjoy the idea of them being two sides of the same coin in terms of how they detach themselves from the reality of their situation.
Noelle on one hand, dissociates heavily, forgetting what happened often or tells herself that she deserved whatever harm she went through. Dess on the other hand, relies on escapism heavily, because she realizes what’s happening to her is wrong, but because she realistically cannot leave the household she unhealthily relies on fixating on escaping or leaving. Unlike Noelle who goes numb to everything so she can “handle it”, Dess gains a low stress tolerance, and has to just constantly distract herself from where she is. A Noelle who finds herself staring blankly at the wall because she doesn’t feel like she or anything around her is real. On the other hand, Dess who finds herself staring blankly at the wall, because she got so caught up in fantasizes of not being where she was that she forgot to pay attention to the real world. Noelle who feels like nothing is real at all, vs a Dess who forgot the line between what’s real and what’s fake.
I think that would create an interesting dynamic, lines up with what we know of Dess & Noelle in canon, and lines up with what psychology says about dissociation & unhealthy usage of escapism.
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