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 “new,” and I doubt it is, knowing yalls crazy asses, but I’ve 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 Kris’s body to Dess’s SOUL, or vice versa upon returning to Dess’s 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 Kris’s reactions in these moments. Dess speaking to Kris/herself isn’t *always* the case, but reading the flavor text through this lens can yield some very, very—ahem—neat 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, if the reason wasn't 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 Dess’s 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 “other people” 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, more likely, it’s just Dess reminding Kris they were too young to play the horror games rather than Dess talking to herself (since this isn’t a dialogue option in which Dess “speaks”)
- 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), guitar REQUIRES two hands. Note that, if Dess/the Soul chooses "I'll never play again," Kris starts gnawing at their hand. Likely implies they believe whatever happened to Dess/her hand is their own fault. It's not Kris grieving something they fear might happen, or the fact they're being controlled, it's just the pain of hearing Dess tell them "I'll never play again" that causes Kris to want to inflict the same pain on themself that 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. Y’know, while Dess is literally lost, separated from her (i.e. new, not-her, Kris's) body.
- Don’t 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, “I’m with you in the Dark [World]”, and Noelle; the lines “and the places that you know seem like fantasy,” and “that’s still shining in the cold” allude to Noelle’s sense of depersonalization (“I feel like I’m watching my life through glass”; she literally tells this to them btw, meaning Dess hears exactly how her being ‘lost’ has affected her only—unless she had blood related ones but who gaf—sibling), and Snowgrave respectively (“cold” referring to the ice shit, “there’s a light inside your SOUL” likely referring to the fledgling red SOUL). The “promise” could be to Kris, or to Noelle, or both. The last line almost certainly is about them, perhaps simultaneously; and if what I’ll soon propose about the Knight’s 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 “please don’t” scene is so much more powerful when you consider that Kris’s body and Dess’s soul/consciousness are simultaneously being puppeteed, with Dess even literally positioning herself above the house’s piping to try and trap herself outside Noelle’s room. When Noelle asks “who would hear,” Dess also answers “Me.” Dess answers “Red” instead of “Blue” because Blue is the color of Kris’s SOUL. She then says “Black,” which uh… yeah. Knight.
- This is a small thing, but I never noticed Dess' guitar is described as “a *red* guitar”. My brain glossed over it because I’d not associated Dess with the SOUL until Chapter 5 (plus it just looks orange to me…) 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 we’re 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, or…?
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. There’s 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 Noelle—granting her the death she has chosen for herself, after telling and acting out that desire explicitly TO Kris—from 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 Mew’s 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 Dess’s disappearance is implied to be something Kris considers their own fault, ‘destroying’ 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 Noelle’s 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 “you actually changed” and wanting “wings” (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 takoyaki’d for are likely the Knight/Dess’s body playing music, just as Kris is wont to do in their fleeting spare time.
As for what happens to the fused Kris (and Noelle?) body/bodies and Dess’s SOUL after they pass the barrier into the shelter during Chapter 5’s weird route? 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? Well… who knows man it’s fucking Gaster
This does make me wonder about the purpose of the vessel. Could it be Gaster’s way of “recapturing” the SOUL by creating a husk to the exact preferences of the Player, we who control Dess’s soul, thus making us/it more receptive to Kris’s 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 3’s Dess Room scene: it’s 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. The Ball of Junk, which Kris’s hand shakes when being forced to drop it. Onion is cooked into, specifically, takoyaki balls. These balls in the Green Room’s RED machine are red and white, the colors of Noelle’s and Dess’s SOULs. Inside the Dess room, you find Dess’s guitar pick in a smaller BLUE machine, one which has zero balls in it; this most likely represents Kris’s SOUL. Its lack of balls, to me, suggests that the Knight’s power (or just the reality of animating the likely-dead and/or decaying body of Dess) means Kris’s original SOUL is either mostly or entirely GONE. USED-UP, you might say… Okay that’s enough Ramb-ing out mb
Anyway the Knight being Dess fused with Kris would also explain the 'how' of Kris and Noelle being ‘used up’; Kris clearly is already barely hanging on without a SOUL to begin with. Kris’s body is seemingly in better shape than Dess’s, but that’s a very low bar. If all that remains after the Weird Route suicide is Dess's soul, one that is now augmented by Noelle's monster SOUL and her fledgling red SOUL rather than the physical bodies of Kris and Dess, this provides a reasonable explanation for why the Knight looks more like Dess (again, esp if her body is in the shelter and was reanimated and/or somewhat preserved that way, perhaps using Kris’s SOUL? This would explain why they use a sword and knife; these are weapons Kris trains with during the previous four chapters prior to fusion, which would pretty much perfectly mirror how Dess’s soul allows Kris to play guitar in ch3 yet they cannot play piano with it during ch4) despite the Knight’s mannerisms retaining their Kris-ity. Uh, Kris-ness. Krismas. Happy Hollidays.
It would be quite the inversion for Weird Route to have Kris’s (and Noelle’s?) bodies contain Dess’s SOUL, only for their SOULs to end up contained *by Dess’s* body, no?
