been getting into kriselle amalgamate knight theory by making an au homunculous thats an uncanny dess-lookalike fusion of the two that was the result of them no-clipping through the lake. they get shattered across time and space and figure out this lets them do a lot. their body is really fragile so they form armor out of pure darkness to protect themselves and the SOUL (which is converted to a patience soul because why not throw in cyan!kris)
basically i imagined that noelle posts her blog to the deltarune website and kris fuels a paradoxical timeline loop that gaster thinks is fucking awesome so he dreams up a video game within a video game for us to play
I haven't had the chance (and probably won't for a good while) to fully dive into this as potential theory evidence in support of Kriselle!Knight but it cannot be understated the amount of parallels that are parallelling with Weird Route Kris & Noelle, and Homestuck's Gamzee & Equius. (Homestuck spoilers ahead obviously, PROCEED at your own risk haha)
NOW BEFORE YOU DOUBT THE VISION I'm not saying these characters are similar in personality or anything, their respective Venn diagrams would have a very VERY small middle. But Kris (albeit through the player/soul's intervention) stringing along Noelle into a "stronger" person who is willing to harm others for her own gain, it's very reminiscent of Gamzee stringing along Equius after reincarnating him into a broader scheme that leads to the eventual formation of Lil' Cal and subsequently Lord English through fusion shenanigans. The closest equivalent in the Undertale/Deltarune universe we've seen to fusion shenanigans is Undertale's amalgamates, but there's enough credibility to the concept that the knight could possibly be some sort of amalgam, just not the exact same thing as an amalgamate given the circumstances to which the amalgamates were created.
And like if you let me, and I found the time, I could go on about potential connections and shit. Kris's neutral status in the battle between the Knight and the Fun Gang; their rage being directed outward to the soul/player regardless of route, ala Gamzee enraging others (including some readers) through his actions; Noelle saying Kris "makes her stronger" and the whole thing with Equius wanting to be STRONG; her Weird Route counterpart fitting Heir(ess) of Void criteria (even if you abort the Weird Route at the lake, she takes autonomy away from the player out of nowhere, making one incapable of choosing to fully abort at first, and still pulling Kris out of bounds, or into what's supposed to be nothingness, in the process); the emphasized significance of save files and timeline jumping/resetting in Undertale that very likely may become relevant to Deltarune when all is said and done, and how timeline/timeloop shenanigans are a crucial element to Homestuck's story; Toby Fox's numerous references and allusions to Homestuck littered throughout the game, some more explicit than others, and his post mentioning that he's had direct communications with Andrew Hussie during the development process of Deltarune; all of this leads me to believe that on top of like actual textual evidence for the theory within Deltarune, there's potential for Kriselle!Knight to be an external parallel to the eventual creation of Lil' Cal and Lord English in Homestuck.
old kriselle knight art and weird route concepts from last june. i can't fully remember the context for the first pieces, except that it maybe had to do with toriel having a breakdown over kris's stoicism turning into the entire loss of kris as a person, and the increasing toll the world was asking of her while only facing more loss.
and a new one messing with a goopier fusion, heavily inspired by cyberlord1109ās art on twitter
i didn't really know what to make as its weapon in the lightworld, but i've thought a bit about the twisted sword in relation to kriselle becoming the knight, so i made it a beam of glass, impractical in the light but very strange and tied to the shadow crystals. i do still quite like the old magic trick sheet design though
All this talk of possible Kriselle fusion knight had me thinking. That particular outcome just doesn't seem that likely to me. But at the same time...
The Knight happens to look a lot like god of hyperdeath!asriel who was implied to be the fusion between a human and monster soul, not to mention they have combat style similarities. Undertale also describes the fusion as "monstrous" which feels like a pretty apt way to describe the knight.
And we know we (the player) are almost definitely not Kris' original soul. So what if the knight is Dess fused with Kris' actual soul?
Deltarune Chapter 5 - Dess SOUL Evidence, as well as a new(?) Knight Theory
Here is more evidence and ostensible clues for Dess being the SOUL.
At the end, I will also state my case for my own Knight theory (it may not be ānew,ā and I doubt it is, knowing yalls crazy asses, but Iāve not seen it myself). The Knight is not necessarily a Kris-Noelle amalgam, or not merely so, but may in fact include the fusion of Krisās body to Dessās SOUL, or vice versa upon returning to Dessās body in the shelter. Some of this comes from reading the 'description flavor text' as Dess talking to/for Kris (and possibly even to herself), which would explain Krisās reactions in these moments. Dess speaking to Kris/herself isnāt *always* the case; almost always her voice leaks through in the later chapters when assessing objects directly related to her; think of this as a loose analogue to the dual narration of Frisk and Chara in Undertaleās Genocide Route (which, by the way, is delineated by, you guessed it, RED text.) Itās clearly not always Dess, and early on her voice is especially muted, but the potentiality of this lens alone opens up an entire potential secondary layer through which to read the entire gameās flavor text, often yielding VERY, VERY INTāahemāneat results.
The evidence itself is supplementing a series of videos by soydesu, as well as providing slight pushback on the Kriselle Knight theory video by JRVanity. However, in broad strokes, these are both excellent theories and I suspect they are mostly, if not entirely, correct.
- Noelle talks about Carol collecting [red] heart pillows "for some reason." Noelle doesn't understand why. Why would that be, if her own mother LOVES (no pun intended) "red, heart-shaped objects" to the point of collecting them, the notoriously cold blue Carol collecting tacky red hearts, if the reason wasn't both personal and highly secretive? This in tandem with Carol using the red-color capital font YOU in "As you know, YOU are always welcome here" confirms that Carol both knows Dess is inside of Kris (a literal friend inside of them....) and that Dess's SOUL is the color red; Kris has both shown and identified Dessās SOUL to Carol.
- The library book on 'how to care for humans' being checked out by "your mother" could very easily be Dess talking about Carol, not Kris about Toriel. The āother peopleā Dess sees in the photo who just by glimpsing makes her/Kris slam the book shut might even be her birth family.
- Her desk having "All the horror games you never got to play" COULD be talking about Kris being too young, but what if it's just a backlog situation? The Hollidays are rich. Dess surely owned a bunch of video games she never got around to playing, especially since she became preoccupied with Asriel and music and--if the Asriel/Dess/Seam prophecy theory holds--her adventures in the Dark World. Or, just as likely, itās just Dess reminding Kris they were too young to play the horror games rather than Dess talking to herself (since this isnāt a dialogue option in which Dess āspeaksā)
- The entire 'you couldn't find your hand' bit in Chapter 3 (which, I'll remind you, is accessed by Dess inputting her birthday into the lottery machine). This makes even more sense if it's talking about something that already happened and cost Dess her hand/life/autonomy than it does as foreshadowing for Kris losing theirs. This is because even moreso than piano (which you could at least *kinda* play one-handed), guitar REQUIRES two hands. Note that if, in Chapter Four, Dess's SOUL chooses "I'll never play again," Kris instantly starts gnawing their hand. This might be the single most 'Dess-voiced' line of the game. It implies Kris believes whatever happened to Dess/her hand was their own fault, likely caused by their (Kris's) own hand, given the motif of 'never being able to clean it off,' the Blue and Holy Water baptism allusions (which I address in Part Two), and the constant gag of Kris choosing not to use their hands whenever possible and instead simply stack holdable items on their head; Chapter Five's watering can draws explicit attention to this gag with Ralsei's "...Okay." line. The "I'll never play again" line isn't necessarily foreshadowing Kris losing the hand (though they might and I kinda hope they do, given the potential for a Kris-Susie piano duet at the end), nor is Kris necessarily grieving their inability to play due to the SOUL controlling them: no, it's just the pain of hearing Dess tell them "I'll never play again." This immediately causes Kris to want to inflict the same pain on themself they believe they're responsible for inflicting on Dess.
- In Chapter 4, the SOUL, upon reaching the Holliday family's basement, can short-circuit the breaker or cause the large stereo to play Lost Girl. Yāknow, while Dess is literally lost, separated from her (i.e. new, not-her, Kris's) body.
- Donāt Forget is a female vocalist and a pianist. It is implied that Kris cannot enter Dark Worlds (let alone seal the Fountains) without her SOUL. The lyrics can be read as Dess comforting both Kris, āIām with you in the Dark [World]ā, and Noelle; the lines āand the places that you know seem like fantasy,ā and āthatās still shining in the coldā allude to Noelleās sense of depersonalization (āI feel like Iām watching my life through glassā; she literally tells this to them btw, meaning Dess hears exactly how her being ālostā has affected her onlyāunless she had blood related ones but who gafāsibling), and Snowgrave respectively (ācoldā referring to the ice shit, āthereās a light inside your SOULā likely referring to the fledgling red SOUL). The āpromiseā could be to Kris, or to Noelle, or both. The last line almost certainly is about them, perhaps simultaneously; and if what Iāll soon propose about the Knightās identity is true, this could not be more literal.
- On the Weird Route as a whole: the Player controls the SOUL, but Dess still seems to have some sort of apperception of what she and they are being forced to do. In this light, the Player torturing Noelle is also torturing her childhood friend AND her sister, even pushing our own responsibility for our actions ONTO Dess in the same way Kris blames themself for whatever happened to Dess/her body at the lake. The āplease donātā dialogue option in the Chapter 4 Snowgrave scene is even more powerful when you consider Krisās body and Dessās soul/consciousness are simultaneously being puppeteed, with Dess even literally positioning herself above the houseās piping to try and trap herself outside Noelleās room. When Noelle asks āwho would hear,ā Dess also answers āMe.ā Dess answers āRedā instead of āBlueā because Blue is the color of Krisās SOUL. She then says āBlack,ā which uhā¦ yeah. Knight.
- This is a small thing, but I never noticed Dess' guitar is described as āa *red* guitarā. My brain glossed over it because Iād not associated Dess with the SOUL until Chapter 5 (plus it just looks orange to meā¦) but that's pretty telling.
- When viewing the sink, the flavor text is "(Your hands are clean.)" Could this be Dess trying to comfort Kris, who sees themself as at fault for whatever happened to Dess, thus destroying both the Dreemur and Holliday families? They can 'never wash it all away' is a pure Kris moment, clearly, and this directly contradicts that. Kris wouldn't genuinely say this about themself. Dess is trying to tell Kris they're innocent/not at fault for whatever happened to her. Compare this to how Kris reacts when Dess says "I'll never play [music] again," which they react to by immediately closing their eyes and biting their fucking hand, perhaps the hand they used to harm Dess if weāre going the OMORI route. The Knight has giant holes in its hands like Gaster btw. It's uncanny.
- In the weird route, Kris and Dess are both, together, "trembling [when Noelle takes their hands]". This is because Dess remembers the lake: what happened. This also presents the possibility that Dess is no longer in control and in fact Kris is turning things back on them--asserting the same sort of agency that Noelle is, and THAT is why Dess's SOUL loses control during this pseudo lovers' suicide.
The Knight - Kriselle, orā¦?
The trembling hands is important. I think the Knight could actually be Kris and Dess fusing into one rather than Kris and Noelle like most people are jumping to assuming. It could also, technically, be all three of them. Thereās clearly enough evidence to say Dess is the red SOUL. But because we know both Kris (eating the apple core for cyanide) and Noelle (she tells them outright) are suicidal, what if Noelle simply dies in the barrier passage, whether by drowning or by being absorbed by Kris/Dess (to save/spare Noelleāgranting her the death she has chosen for herself, after telling and acting out that desire explicitly TO Krisāfrom whatever is about to happen to them, which they are ostensibly aware of to some extent given their cooperation with the Knight?). This would serve as a dark mirror to Pink and Mew Mewās merging, showing the flip side of this process in which the two aren't 'made complete' in the sense of fulfillment, but are destroyed/de-individualized in the process.
This Knight identity (or lack thereof, ig) preserves both the Kris-Knight parallels and the Susie-Dess/Knight parallels, which is IMO important since Noelle finds comfort in Susie, seeing Susie as someone to move forward from her trauma of losing Dess with and through, specifically because of how Susie fills the void (their similar personalities are a major factor in the 'how/why' here) that Dess's disappearance/death left behind. This alao explains why Kris and Susie become as close as they do; Kris misses Dess too, not in the same way as Noelle but perhaps as strongly. Especially since Dessās disappearance is implied to be something Kris considers their own fault, ādestroyingā the Dreemur and Holliday families' lives singlehandedly; my theory is that the Catti-Kris demon summoning ritual summoned FRIEND--due to the 'tail of hell' shit--and whatever hell this raised led to Dess's body being destroyed alongside Kris's soul in her attempt to protect/save Kris from death.
The Weird Route also seems to link the SOUL event, the origin of whatever happened to Dess and now to Kris, to the lake (the Knight fight dialogue from Chapter 3 is almost ALL lake-related), which is where the SOUL begins (Vessel creation, Dess disappearing or dying at/in the lake/shelter below it) and is reborn through its connection (thorn ring, fledgling SOUL in Noelle's body) to Noelleās monster soul, which is then used to pass the barrier into the shelter. However, this is where I think Noelle simply dying has the most evidence against it; between her line of āyou actually changedā and wanting āwingsā (which the Knight has in bird form), it does feel like either her body/monster soul remain in the Knight to some extent. Either that, or Kris/Dess use the bird form/wings as a homage to her.
Anyway, the underwater sounds Onion heard and got takoyakiād for are likely the Knight/Dessās body quite literally SOULlessly playing music, exactly like Kris is wont to do in their fleeting spare time.
The parallel with Kris and Noelle falling out of bounds in Deltarune, much like Gaster in Undertale, should not be overlooked. Especially since the two very clearly seem to be falling INTO Gasterās creation or lab or whatever the fuck heās cooking in the shelter. As for what happens to the fused Kris (and Noelle?) body/bodies and Dessās SOUL after they pass the barrier into the shelter during Chapter 5ās weird route: there are options. Are they working with/for Gaster by kidnapping the main characters from Undertale so Gaster can either recreate his original world or return to it (say, in exchange for Gaster promising Kris and Dess to re-swap their bodies with the proper SOULS, or reset Hometown to before Kris summoned FRIEND, or to simply let the three die and rest peacefully) if Gaster succeeds? Wellā¦ who knows man itās fucking Gaster
This does make me wonder about the purpose of the vessel. Could it be Gasterās way of ārecapturingā the SOUL by creating a husk to the exact preferences of the Player, we who control Dessās soul, thus making us/it more receptive to Krisās body? Was that Gaster testing Kris-like forms to see how her SOUL would take to them, and us to her? Who knows, man
Tying this to Chapter 3ās Dess Room scene: itās worth noting the balls in the Green Room lottery machine. Balls are somewhat significant as a motif for Gaster, GONERslop, etc. The Knight transforms into a ball. Jockington (who is likely FRIEND and/or a GONER but I have another post on that) is obsessed with games/sports: especially sports with balls. FRIENDās tail is made of balls. The Ball of Junk, which Krisās hand shakes when being forced to drop it. Onion is cooked into, specifically, takoyaki balls. These balls in the Green Roomās RED machine are red and white, the colors of Noelleās and Dessās SOULs. Inside the Dess room, you find Dessās guitar pick in a smaller BLUE machine, one which has zero balls in it; this most likely represents Krisās SOUL. Its lack of balls, to me, suggests that the Knightās power (or just the reality of animating the likely-dead and/or decaying body of Dess) means Krisās original SOUL is either mostly or entirely GONE. USED-UP, you might sayā¦ Okay thatās enough Ramb-ing out mb
Anyway the Knight being Dess fused with Kris (and Noelle) explains the 'how' of Kris and Noelle being āused upā in SWORD route; Kris is barely hanging on without a SOUL to begin with. And while their body is seemingly in better shape than Dessās, thatās a very low bar. On the subject of Dessās physical body/corpse: this idea of the Knight being a dead-yet-conscious entity also inverts what was established in Chapter 5 through the liminality of the flowers: a living-yet-unconscious entity (i.e. in the Light World, they function subconsciously as all non-human assemblages of matter operate, by virtue of lacking the intellectual capacity for inauthenticity: like sleepwalkers driven by the biological imperative. Pink somewhat already foils this idea, as a ghost animating their inanimate figurine, but again, the Knight serves as the foil-to-the-foil: fusion as abomination rather than unification; as self-erosion and de-individualization, rather than as spiritual and emotional completeness like with Pink and Mew Mew's fusion.
If all that remains of Kris and Noelle after the Weird Route suicide is Dess's soul, now augmented by Noelle's monster SOUL and the connective tissue of her thorn-ring-inherited fledgling red SOUL, this explains why the Knight looks more like Dess rather than Kris or Noelle: itās her body, or whatās left of it. This especially works if her corpse ended up in the shelter and was reanimated and/or somewhat preserved that wayā¦ perhaps using Krisās SOUL? It would explain why the Knight fights with a sword; these are weapons Kris trains with during the previous four chapters prior to fusion, which would perfectly mirror how Dessās soul allows Kris to play guitar in ch3 while they cannot play piano using it during ch4āeven despite the Knightās mannerisms retaining their Kris-ity. Uh, Kris-ness. Krismas. Happy Hollidays.
It would be quite the inversion for Weird Route to have Krisās (and Noelleās?) bodies contain Dessās SOUL, only for their SOULs to end up contained *by Dessās* body, no?
PART TWO: The Red SOUL, the Knight, the Influence and Motivations of W.D. Gaster, and Us
š¬ 0Ā Ā š 1Ā Ā ā¤ļø 12Ā Ā·Ā Deltarune Chapter 5 - The Red SOUL, the Knight, the Influence and Motivations of W.D. Gaster, and UsĀ Ā·Ā
Holy cheese and c
i donāt know how i feel about weird route kriselle fusion knight yet ā¦ might be a cool idea but im so attached to my dess. and for a ācasual playerā this one might be way harder to pull off. idk i think its one of those things that is a fun fanfic idea but i dont reallyyyyy think it should be as serious as people are taking it. iāll have to think abt this. big fan of the one image i saw on twitter though that compared the thorn ring fusing kriselle to the queens ring prototyping bec noir
my "mew mew is foreshadowing the knight's true identity" theory is maybe the first time i ever made up my own theory by myself and thought really really hard on it. i joke that it's like my own personal "papyrus knight" but tbh i'm seeing way more connections than papyrus could ever have here. i just keep seeing and figuring out new stuff linking back to my theory it's just insane. #MEWMEWCOPE
this video feels even more like what Mew Mew Pink and Ghost Pink's relationship is an allegory for than anything relating to Kris and the soul alone. i know i've stuck with the "knight is actually a fusion between dess's soul and a darkner of her corpse" theory so hard but this alternate theory of Kriselle Knight just clicks together with my Mew Mew theory so damn well it's legit scary
also pair the guy's theory combined with my theory up with this possible interpretation of the Pink boss's song lyrics and uh. hi what the actual fuck
Indigenous lands are crucial for climate mitigation and resilience. Research shows their health is a direct result of Indigenous stewardship
While this isn't news to anyone who works in this space, it is useful to have this water-is-wet research to affirm that Indigenous knowledge and land management are extremely effective at storing carbon and protecting biodiversity.
I want to draw special attention to this part of the article:
New research shows that approach overlooks the key role that Indigenous knowledge and culture can play in mitigating climate change. It also reveals a dangerous misconception that has taken hold in global climate discussions: the idea that Indigenous lands are so rich because they are remote or sparsely populated.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The health of Indigenous lands and their ability to store vast quantities of carbon stem from the stewardship of the people who inhabit them.
I'm actually bringing this back around to say another important thing.
I get a fair number of asks and comments on my posts expressing sentiments like "human beings are a plague on this Earth", "humans ruin everything, we deserve to be wiped out", "humanity is inherently selfish, evil, and irredeemable".
I don't think the folks saying these things have bad intentions, I know their words come from a place of very understandable pain, fear, and anger. But to act as though humanity's impact on nature is inherently damaging and extractive is to erase thousands of years of Indigenous stewardship of nature. These ecosystems are thriving because there are humans living there.
This is your regular reminder that you don't need to feel guilty for being a human. You are part of nature--viewing humans as inherently separate from the rest of nature is actually part of the problem. You will be so much better served redirecting that guilt into supporting the humans who are helping nature or resisting those who are hurting it.
TheĀ Minotaur was named that because he was the son of King Minos. Anyone with a bull head has to be named after their dad, like the Kyletaur or something.
