My theory The Promise in Our Hearts is now standalone and updated for Chapter 5!
The Promise in Our Hearts An alternative thesis on Krisā promise in Deltarune Standalone Version HolyWaterCooler This is the āgeneral au
This is an alternative thesis about Kris' promise in Deltarune.
Its main hypothesis is that the promise may be related to protecting Noelle, rather than finding Dess.
This version of the theory only requires knowledge of Deltarune Chapters 1-5.
If you happen to be familiar with Umineko, you may want to check out the original version of the theory here, as it contains extra background information for how I came to my conclusions. (Please note that post-Chapter 5 addendums were added in a reblog for this version.)
I recommend viewing on desktop since the formatting breaks slightly on mobile (it should still be readable though, and the app is less bad than mobile web).
what do you think of the stuff from the newsletter? and the 7B webpage?
Right now Iām mostly just excited to see what Toby has in store! Especially for 7B, because I feel like this whole chunk of the Sweepstakes that alludes to the WR which now includes what appears to be a progress tracker for 7Bās development shows that Toby is incredibly excited for people to see the Weird Route and how it ends. Iām excited and scared for it too!!
He mentioned that heās told Fangamer not to expect to make a lot of merch for 6 and 7, which to me suggests those chapters will be more focused on the main Lightner characters and/or have some long Light World segments. That alongside the statement that Chapter 6 focuses on one particular aspect of the story makes me think that rather than answering most of the mysteries outright, it might be a chapter that expands on the motivating factors that caused the main story to take place. Backstories, flashbacks, latent emotions, things like that. Whatever is necessary for us to eventually understand why the characters have ended up on the path that theyāre on. I think a lot of the chapter might end up being about Noelle and her history and her psyche, butā¦ I love Noelle and want to see more of her so I am not at all unbiased on this!
I super agree with his whole paragraph about this era of fandom being special because itās the only time we can create theories and fanworks that are unique to the context of the unfinished Deltarune that exists right now. The game is currently in a sort of superposition where a huge number of outcomes are still possible, but once the ending comes out, that āDeltaruneā will be gone forever. You can always make AUs, but itās not quite the same. I have a lot of frustrations with this fandom, but usually those frustrations come from a wish that more people would cherish this era of wild speculation and be open to crazy ideas instead of being at each otherās throats all the time. You donāt actually have to be right about a video game, it doesnāt matter.
There is no reason for Toby to try to temper expectations about certain theories unless the fandom at large is wrong about something major. If all he wanted to say was ākeep having fun with your theoriesā, that paragraph was not necessary to include. I have a strong suspicion that itās DessKnight purely because nothing else has the level of consensus that it has, but who knows. (By the way, just because I think the theory might be wrong doesnāt even mean I think itās badā¦ itās mostly the obstinacy that I dislike :P)
Anyway I need Toby to post a pic of Kikky right meow
Toby, in the nicest way possible: So Chapter 6 still isnāt going to resolve various things because itās focused on one aspect of the story. Also donāt get too attached to any one theory since certain things can be interpreted differently, but please keep having fun!
This fandom: PLACE YOUR BETS NOW on which MAJOR MYSTERIES will be answered in Chapter 6!!! (The options are the Knight, the Dessappearance, FRIEND and ERAM as usual)
In the event that the one thing that will be clarified is the Knightās identity (please please please, I cannot stand another moment of Knight discourse), you should prepare yourselves. This is not at all how I would write a newsletter for a chapter in which the Knight is revealed to be Dess, lmao
Toby, in the nicest way possible: So Chapter 6 still isnāt going to resolve various things because itās focused on one aspect of the story. Also donāt get too attached to any one theory since certain things can be interpreted differently, but please keep having fun!
This fandom: PLACE YOUR BETS NOW on which MAJOR MYSTERIES will be answered in Chapter 6!!! (The options are the Knight, the Dessappearance, FRIEND and ERAM as usual)
I think my problem with many Deltarune theories is that it seems like the fandom reached a consensus on what the game's themes are and what type of story it's telling ~5 years ago and is now incapable of imagining that this foundation might have been (even partially) wrong. Even when presented with new information, it's not ignored exactly, but instead of being integrated properly into an updated understanding of the game, it just gets added on top of existing preconceptions even when it doesnāt actually fit well. That's why weāve ended up with this horrible shambling amalgamation that is āDeltarune-as-imagined-by-fansā that doesnāt really stand up under scrutiny.
started watching deltarune device theory videos and mollystars has yet to mention umineko when they cry & may not . and its gonna make me go insane. you guys dont understand how much this whole thing smacks of umineko. like even beyond "what does it mean to love a fiction" and "game within a game" stuff.......out-of-bounds of the story being a sea? kris finding shards that seem to reflect an alternate world sometimes? bro...
in umineko you are watching the game unfold and trying to understand what it means for the game parts to be a "game" and what bearing the parts outside the game have on "reality" and coming to accept the lines between real and fiction are never actually clear cut. but all this you get to analyze from an outside perspective, never making any of the moves yourself, that's Battler's job. then in deltarune toby said "no YOU sit down across from the witch and do some shit on the chessboard. good luck"
I've talked about this before, but I wanted to elaborate on it a bit, because I've since discovered more evidence of this phenomenon that might shed some light on its true nature.
I have found three instances in the game so far where this strange, even fade to white - notably distinct to the sealing of Dark Fountains, where light expands out from the SOUL - intervenes in events, and I believe they come from the same source.
This could all be nothing... but it could also be foreshadowing one of the most powerful beings of the Deltarune world.
(Deltarune Chapter 5 Weird Route Spoilers, Long Post, Rampant Speculation)
I have chronicled these instances of what I am, for now, simply calling the "White Fade", in reverse chronological order, because the post flows better if I do that. and also it's cool so shush
Third: Noelle & The Lake
The third instance of the White Fade is in the Lake Sequence in Chapter 5's Weird Route, when a crashing-out Noelle attempts to use "Kris" to "ā¤ļø Proceed" her way out of the bounds of reality to the other side of the lake. As I've said before:
As Noelle and Kris sink into the lake, the screen starts fading to white. If it goes too long, the route is aborted, and you have to keep selecting "ā¤ļø Proceed" to push the white fade back.
I believe this "White Fade" is a living, thinking force, and that it was responsible for aborting the Weird Route in Chapter 5 when we could not. Noelle ignores our direct pleas to "ā¤ļø Stop" at this point, so all we can do is fail to keep the pressure up on her escape attempt, and allow the White Fade to scene-transition us very abruptly back to the plot.
This instance is unique in that the White Fade can actually be stopped if we keep "ā¤ļø Proceed"-ing, but... we'll come back to that.
Second: The Forgotten Man & Mancountry
The second instance of the White Fade is on the way out of Mancountry/Forgotten Island in Chapter 3, where it sends Kris back to the Green Room with no way to return. This is technically only because the TripTicket is consumed, but according to the Forgotten Man's warning, Mancountry disappears entirely in this moment, seemingly erased by the White Fade.
(That island was a world heritage site! Have some respect for your roots, W.F!)
First: Gaster & The Goner Maker
The first - and notably, the only mandatory - instance of the White Fade is right at the start of the game in Gaster's Goner Maker. Right as everything is wrapped up, Gaster is cut off by the Second Voice, who discards his work and informs us on how things work around these parts, before the White Fade takes us to Hometown.
Notably, their final line, while technically cut off by the White Fade, lines up perfectly with Toriel's call to Kris on the other side finishing the sentence. I think this was intentional on the Second Voice's part.
This brings me directly to my suspicion that...
The White Fade Is The Second Voice
(Or at the very least, they're in cahoots)
That voice, whoever they are, is behind all three of these events. These moments, of course, share the White Fade itself, but they also support an agenda appropriate for someone of the Second Voice's attitude.
All three of these moments involve deviations from the intended, fated path. Noelle tires of her suffocating life, and is trying to boundary break to escape it. The Forgotten Man speaks of how Mancountry is seemingly a holdover from a previous iteration of Deltarune, before "SOCIETY WAS DEVELOPED.", and "THE WHOLE WORLD LOOKED LIKE THIS." And Gaster looks forward to "CREATING A NEW FUTURE" with us... Was he trying to stop Kris from becoming "THE CAGE"?
In any case, these attempts at deviation catch the attention of the White Fade, and they are subsequently corrected; Noelle and Kris are sent back to the shore, Mancountry is erased, and no one can choose who they are in this world.
The Second Voice, the White Fade, doesn't like when people break from the story, and it has the power to enforce this preference.
The Forbidden Path?
But if the White Fade sees the Weird Route as an aberration, why wait until the last minute to try to cut it off?
Completing the Lake Sequence generates unique Completion Data and permanently flags the game - similarly to Undertale's Genocide Route - so the Lake Sequence seems to be the true point of no return for the Weird Route. No matter how far you've gone, the route can still be aborted before you cross that threshold... either by you, or the White Fade itself.
Whatever "true path" the White Fade is enforcing, it seemingly isn't down to the letter. A degree of variability is permitted; things like the team's name, the design of the Thrash Machine, whether Darkners are RECRUITed or LOST... things that don't affect where the story's going. And while the early Weird Route is a good deal bigger of a nudge from normalcy, certain events, like Ralsei explaining Dark World mechanics and Susie spotting the Shelter code, still happen, so returning to the status quo is still feasible, and in fact will happen naturally without the player making a concerted effort to break things further. It's only at the Lake Sequence, from which the story can't possibly recover on its own, that the White Fade deems it necessary to tip the scales.
So the White Fade either has a degree of tolerance for abnormalities, or prefers to act with a light touch whenever possible... OR, secret third thing: the Weird Route is actually still within the bounds of normalcy up until the Lake, like a sort of controlled opposition - there are instructions for it in the game, technically - but I'm not confident about that.
Something this does tell us about the White Fade is that its opposition to plot deviations doesn't come from a moral or ethical stance; you can murder the absolute shit out of Berdly and it doesn't make a peep, because Berdly just isn't that narratively important... and neither, apparently, is what's left of Noelle's mental health. The implications for Chapter 6 are dire.
DANGER: YOU ARE LEAVING THE NORMAL ZONE
Okay, this is where my confident thoughts about the White Fade that I'd actually stand by, end. Everything beyond this is rampant speculation. You have been warned.
Is The White Fade The Survey Voice?
Something I wanted to touch on is the voice that responded to everyone's answers in the Thank You Survey that teased Chapter 5's Weird Route.
This... could also be the Second Voice, and therefore the White Fade? I'm not as confident about this one. Its snarky and often sarcastic tone fits decently with the Second Voice's cynicism, at least to me, but... I don't know.
It's hard to gauge the Survey Voice's exact opinion of the Weird Route. Responses skew mostly negative, but they sound more just "disapproving" than outright hostile like the White Fade implies.
"Festival" answers got a response where it expresses a mocking dismissal of those that walk "this path" - presumably the Weird Route - saying:
The only people that walk this path...
... are those who have their face so close to the road
they can't even see where they're going!
You'd presume this is talking about the Weird Route, but compare it to Noelle's speech at the lake:
On a meta level, she seems to be talking about following the Normal Route; following the safe, friendly way through the story... regardless of how that story could actually end. If you've read any of my recent theories, you'll know what I think about the Normal Route's ending.
So are Noelle and the Survey Voice on the same page, or of opposing opinions? It's vague enough to read either way, but I'm leaning towards opposing; the Survey Voice derides those that watch the path too closely, while Noelle derides those who refuse to look at all.
In "Ferris Wheel" answers, the voice asserts some innate "wrongness" to "them" - presumably Noelle & Kris - being together, but concedes that "The heart does what it does.", demonstrating a recognition that the will of the game's characters may differ from what the Survey Voice deems "right".
So... the Survey Voice disapproves of the Weird Route, but is willing to discuss it, and to acknowledge it.
The White Fade tries to stop the Lake Sequence, but does not intervene in the Weird Route before then, despite a willingness to interfere much earlier in other circumstances.
...These ideas probably won't have clear answers until Chapter 7 drops, and we find out what's on the other side of the lake... although we might get a hint or two in Chapter 6, depending on what happens to Noelle.
...
Alright, enough beating around the bush,
Is The White Fade The Angel!?
The Angel's role of governing fate itself - implied by Alvin saying that the Angel has made a "difficult path" for Asgore in Chapter 4 - would fit well with the Second Voice's mindset and the White Fade's great power.
The White Fade presides over the Deltarune World, and the Angel's Prophecy seems to be its favoured path. A path where some live, some die, and while the minor details are permitted to shift, key events will always occur, and one's role in the script is non-negotiable. And while it has the patience to wait out even major deviations, it also has enough dominion over reality itself to correct attempts to break off the rails, overpowering even the likes of W. D. Gaster himself.
Now, claiming the White Fade is not just the Second Voice, and also maybe the Survey Voice, but also
The Angel from da Prophecy
is a much bigger speculative leap, and I'm not 100% sold on it myself. But I can't deny there's some elegance to it. A major theme of Deltarune is grappling with fate, and pre-destined paths. If our ultimate goal really is to defy destiny, to "CREATE A NEW FUTURE" as the good doctor said, what better antagonist could there be to that goal then the arbiter of destiny itself?
And also, it's just kinda... cool, from a characterisation standpoint. You'd expect something like the Angel to be this impartial being above the wants of lowly mortals, but tying it to the Second Voice, and especially the Survey Voice, gives it this interestingly self-righteous and petty vibe. Can you imagine if the Angel was petty? That'd be hilarious! And terrifying.
Is The White Fade Eram?
...Nah. I don't think so. Vibe's off. Eram seems like more of a personal antagonist to Kris, and their dialog has this touch of sadism that isn't really present in the Second Voice.
RELAX: YOU ARE RETURNING TO THE NORMAL ZONE
Conclusion
Whatever the White Fade's true nature, whatever name or face can be tied to it, what I must insist on is that it is, as a phenomenon, immensely powerful, and something we should be keeping an eye out for. Because if this reality-shaping timeline warden is gonna stand in the way of a "NEW FUTURE" for this world, we might be the only thing that can stop it.
Well, us... and Noelle.
The means to get her to this point are costly, but her unique abilities, combined with our power and soaked in her bond with Kris, is able to supersede the White Fade's will and break off the path. And that's not to call the White Fade weak; I was willing to compare this thing to what is essentially the god of this world. No I think this demonstrates just how powerful Noelle has become.
With the right priming and a power source, Noelle has the potential to break through the narrative itself through sheer force of will. I've often joked that Noelle would be unstoppable if she wasn't the saddest girl in the world, but honestly, it's only half a joke; there is something in this girl's spirit that's just really good for breaking things.
Part of me wonders if the White Fade holds that against her. The "true path" and the permitted Weird Route aren't exactly favourable to her, after all.
(Over)analysing the 'December' Spelling Puzzle Scene
I've been thinking about the scene where Kris and Noelle spell out the word 'December' together over the last couple of days, and I wanted to write a little bit of an analysis on it.
This is a scene that feels very weighty since it's unskippable in the Normal Route. The lack of music encourages a strong focus on the dialogue and the spelling puzzle, and it's the capstone of the Kris and Noelle segment of Cyber City. That, and it also contains the first mandatory mentions of Dess in the game.
Here are some ideas that I have about it!
Breaking down barriers
First of all, this puzzle requires two people to press buttons on either side of a barrier that physically separates them.
The same thing hangs over Kris' head and acts as the foundation for Noelle's path: December. The imagery could not be much clearer - Dess is the thing keeping Kris and Noelle apart, in spite of their prior close friendship. Whether this refers to the disappearance incident alone, or even extends to Dess' habit of smacking and punishing Kris whenever they teased Noelle (seemingly a way that they show affection), something to do with Dess is stopping these two from being closer than they might otherwise be.
The traffic cones that separate Kris and Noelle are only visible when not obscured by the dark buildings in the foreground. These buildings create an effect where light and dark are constantly alternating. In the light, there's a wall between them. In the dark, that wall doesn't exist.
I'm with you in the dark.
So perhaps the Dark Worlds represent an opportunity for Kris and Noelle to close that gap and rekindle their old friendship. This is supported by the fact that during the short period of time that Kris and Noelle are alone together in Cyber City, the two of them start falling back into the habit of teasing each other, Noelle overcomes her fear of mice, and her Boldness stat slowly increases from -12 to 60. If you make Kris tell the Addison that they and Noelle are friends, Noelle is happy to hear them say that. These positive developments are seemingly reset when Noelle is told that she's just dreaming, but what might she think when she finds out it was real after all?
If Noelle is 'that girl' who played with the same Darkners as Kris when they were children, then you could think of the Dark Worlds as a universe originally created by the two of them. These Dark Worlds are places where both of their pasts and traumas can be explored and eventually overcome. The proof is in the puzzle. Noelle spells out the word 'DECEMBER' in a repeat of the spelling bee scenario that we later hear about from Berdly. She might not realise it, but she just safely confronted a small trauma of hers, with Kris by her side.
At the end of the puzzle, Noelle leaps back over the barrier to rejoin Kris, and she reflects on how well Kris knows her.
If the memory of Dess is the thing keeping them apart, then this further implies that once the puzzle of Dess is solved (by finding out what happened to her or whatever else), Kris and Noelle might be able to have a closer relationship once more.
Verticality and Kris' avoidance
There are a couple of vertical sections in the puzzle where Noelle is entirely in the dark, and Kris is entirely in the light.
There's no real reason that there needed to be vertical sections here unless there's some kind of symbolism at play. There are probably a few ways you could interpret it, but my current idea is that this might represent what each of them know or remember about Dess' disappearance. Kris seems to know something, since they are implied to be burdened with guilt over a past incident. But Noelle is 'in the dark' about it, either because she doesn't know or doesn't remember what happened.
There's also a moment where Noelle's sprite reverts to her childhood self while Kris' does not:
This may symbolise the fact that Kris seems to be trying to avoid engaging with their childhood memories, particularly those that involve Noelle.
Colour theory
With the new pairing of Blue and Yellow emerging in Chapter 5, you may have seen some chatter about how Toby likes blue and yellow couples. Alphys and Undyne, Lanino and Elnina, Blue and Yellow, and...?
Well.
Accept no substitutes!
This entire scene is bathed in blue and yellow, down to Kris and Noelle's silhouettes. In fact, everything is so blue and yellow that the pink traffic cones really stand out as being out of place.
So, crazy question: what if Dess were pink? No, not that Pink...
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I don't think I want to think too much harder about this comparison right now lmao
Okay but seriously, why else might Dess be associated with pink? Well, pink and yellow is a colour combination that we know well from IMAGE_FRIEND and FRIEND-associated items. There have been some theories arguing that these are Suselle colours, but now that I think about it, Susie is consistently described as 'purple' in both the Light and Dark Worlds, never 'pink'. But if pink and yellow referred to the two Holiday sisters, maybe that could make some sense?
There are also the Flying Aces from Mancountry which are always randomised to be blue and yellow, except for one that's hardcoded to be pink.
...Who knows if this is anything. I'm not married to this idea, haha.
"Someplace new"
After gaining confidence from the puzzles that she and Kris have solved so far, Noelle is the one to take the initiative to jump over the traffic cones and start solving the 'December' puzzle. This may actually be a small hint at Noelleās ability to boundary break, i.e. reach areas of the map that we and Kris cannot.
So I thought it might be a good idea to look at the rest of her dialogue with her characterisation from Chapter 5ās Weird Route in mind.
Noelleās desire to āgo someplace newā seems to be analogous to her wish to āgo somewhere nobodyās ever been beforeā in the Weird Route. Now, this desire might be more extreme in the Weird Route, but itās something that sheās been experiencing for a long time. At least, since Dess āleftā. But in fact:
Dess telling Noelle that sheād take her somewhere new is interesting. It suggests that both of them had a desire to explore the unknown, in a certain sense. If two characters are described as either 'leaving' or wanting to 'leave', might that suggest that Dess' disappearance could have been a similar situation to what we see in the Weird Route - perhaps a suicide or even a boundary break (whether purposeful or not)?
Think about what this interaction must look like. This is a scarf type item. Imagine Kris raising the mistletoe up to try and wrap it around her neck and then they both realise what this looks like and just stare at each other for a secondā¦ Kris gets embarrassed and gives up trying to equip itā¦
So do we want to talk about how Deltarune Chapter 5 soft confirmed the identity of the Roaring Knight? And it doesn't require any overly complicated theories or silly nonsense to figure out anymore?
Or is that something we're still not talking about?
I may write more on this in the future. Some other people have also figured it out too, and have gone way more in depth than I will. Because really, Toby's done an INSANE amount of foreshadowing here with the details and I'm kind of kicking myself for not noticing it earlier.
But lets talk about the Roaring Knight.
If you're thinking about the Roaring Knight and their identity, then there's a few things that you should really ask:
What is the Roaring Knight's motive?
Why did they start creating fountains when they did?
Is their will explicitly represented in each of the Dark Worlds that the Roaring Knight has created?
The four members of the Holiday family are the most clear cut candidates for the Roaring Knight: Carol, Rudy, Noelle, and Dess. And you can ask these questions of each of them to figure out.
I think you'll find very quickly that Dess is ruled out on these three points, and that DessKnight as a concept doesn't make sense. There's no motive, you can't figure out why she started creating fountains at the plot's outcome, and because we've barely learned anything about Dess after five chapters, you can't clearly say her will is represented in ANY of the four Dark Worlds that the Roaring Knight has made.
Recall that the Roaring Knight has made four confirmed Dark Worlds so far: Card Kingdom, Cyber World, Dark Sanctuary, and 3rd Sanctuary. Susie suspects they were behind the original Dark World, but Ralsei immediately points out it doesn't make sense.
I saw someone recently describe Dess as the Roaring Knight an interesting way. Paraphrased, she's "a mystery antagonist without a motive, and that's like a tree without wood." Or another way to put it, when you have a bat, everything looks like a ball.
You can really stretch Dess to try and fit anything. But the game itself doesn't support her in there.
Carol and Rudy, on the other hand, have an immediate implied motive: Dess. It's implied, because they don't express it outright in game anywhere. Carol implies it with the nature of Dess's guitar and her room in Chapter 4, and how she doesn't want Susie to touch it or how people aren't suppose to go in there.
Rudy has a second implied motive for being the Knight, and also for why he might have started now. His failing health. His health is mentioned in game too as a reason he needs to get better.
Rudy has the same problem as Carol, however. He doesn't explicitly mention Dess as a motive. In fact, his only mention of Dess is if you examine the angel doll in Chapter 1. Outside of the photos from previous festivals showing that him and Dess were on good terms, there isn't much in the game really connecting Rudy acting as the Roaring Knight to Dess.
Rudy and Carol also have another really glaring issue - you can't explicitly show that their will is represented in the four Dark Worlds that we know the Roaring Knight made. This is almost always involving Chapter 1 most noticeably. It is very difficult to find Rudy or Carol's will represented in Card Kingdom:
They're not reflected in King. King goes on a rant about purpose, and we haven't seen that from them.
They're not reflected in Lancer, despite Lancer making a bunch of Christmas puns. Lancer is someone trying to be a scary villain, and not being very effective at it until Susie comes along.
They're not reflected in Jevil, who feels he's the only one free and everyone is trapped. You don't see Carol or Rudy express this sentiment.
And they're not reflected in the Darkners you encounter or aspects of the world.
A similar issue occurs with Cyber World and the two Sanctuary Dark Worlds as well.
But there is one character who accurately reflects the world of all four Dark Worlds that are created by the Roaring Knight.
In Card Kingdom, we see Lancer reflecting all the things she finds scary, but aren't actually scary. We see King reflecting her desire for purpose and to break free. In Jevil, we see someone who is trapped, watching themselves through glass.
In Cyber World, we see a reflection of what she feels in regards to the mother features in her life in Queen. We see the spam emails she discarded in the trash in Spamton, which she responded to. We see the destroyed highway at the start, before Queen appears and captures Noelle, showing devastation the likes we don't see again in Chapter 2. And we see romantic elements all across the city, in the Ferris Wheel, in the boat rides, and in the tea cups. As if someone was waiting for Susie to arrive.
And in the Dark Sanctuaries, we see someone who is very familiar with the religion of Hometown. We see someone who knows the book of hymns well enough to read it, and for it to become an enemy Darkner.
She has multiple motives to be the Dark Knight, both in the form of Dess and in the form of her sick father.
She has a reason to start making Dark Fountains when the game starts, as Rudy is shown to be sick and he even notes they found something if you talk to him in Chapter 1.
And she expresses why she wants healing magic - to heal her sick father.
And her and Kris suddenly have a reason to start being in a rush from Chapter 5 onward.
It's Noelle.
Noelle is the Roaring Knight.
Not Dess, a character we barely know anything about, and who more haunts the narrative much like Chara did in Undertale.
Not Carol or Rudy, whose wills are not reflected in the Dark Worlds we've seen so far. And whose on screen motives have not been explicitly shown in a way that we, the player, can figure it out.
And definitely not something like Kriselle, which would require knowledge of Undertale to even begin to come to the conclusion of.
The whole Kriselle Knight theory is basically what happens when someone catches onto the soft confirmation, but doesn't draw the most immediate obvious conclusion from it. Yes, Deltarune's Knight was hiding in plain sight the whole time, and the creator gets major kudos for picking up on a lot of foreshadowing Toby put in the game. But no, it's probably not going to require knowledge of things that have never been presented in Deltarune as of Chapter 5 to solve. Toby doesn't work that way typically, and it would be very odd for him to start now.
It's Noelle.
The girl who has been there since Chapter 1. Who had a unique portrait from Chapter 1. Who was foreshadowed as important in Chapter 1. Who's family has been there indirectly in some way (via Rudy and mentions of Dess) since Chapter 1.
The girl who has been right behind Susie and Ralsei in terms of how important they are to overall plot of Deltarune.
The game has been telling you this for awhile now, and Chapter 5's Weird Route was the soft confirmation. And this is why the Weird Route is Side B - it's the second half of the cassette tape. The other side of the floppy disk.
I'm certain in Chapter 6 we're going to find out why she's the Roaring Knight, and get a lot of the game's biggest mysteries answered. But I think if you're on another Knight theory train, you might want to very carefully think over the three questions above and ask yourself "Does this person really fit?"
Oh, and if you haven't figured out who was responding to us in the Thank You Survey ARG, I'll just say this. Toby did not break character at the spelling mistakes, or at the person who submitted an email.
yk something i thought that was kinda weird about the whole arg thing in the ferris wheel answer was that the speaker said that we wanted to āsee them together so badly. you want to see those red eyes danceā. but for the weird route, why would we want krisā eyes to dance? why would the speaker imply the player wants *them* to be happy? if that specific arg response was solely supposed to dunk on players that do weird route because they want to get with noelle (which i agree is kinda weird), why would they bring up *kris* seeming happy instead of saying something more focused on *noelleās* feelings about you? am i misunderstanding something?
Well, I actually donāt think that that particular ARG answer is only about criticising certain Weird Route players and SOULellers (although I do believe that itās one of the intended readings). But for the sake of argument, you can interpret Kris' dancing eyes as either happy or darting around in fear. I'm on the side of it being a sign that Kris is enjoying something, since it calls back to ERAM's taunting of Kris for enjoying the Sword Route (and possibly also some part of the Weird Route).
I've always thought that this response sounds like itās simultaneously chastising the Weird Route player and taunting Kris for whatever feelings they might harbour towards Noelle:
Even so
it's wrong.
Everything about it is wrong!
But what good is it for me to say?
The heart does what it does.
"The heart does what it does" is meant to make you think of the SOUL as player avatar first, but it also sounds very much like the more romantic phrase "the heart wants what it wants".
If the ARG narrator is ERAM, it wouldn't be the first time that they've taunted Kris by pointing out feelings that Kris seemingly wants to suppress. And ERAM doesn't even need to be talking directly to Kris here, this could just be their commentary on the situation as an entity that apparently knows Kris very well.
So why would the player want to see Kris and Noelle together? I can't say for sure, but if my suspicions are correct that we're eventually going to find out that Kris has feelings for Noelle, then it's interesting to think that the Weird Route could be recontextualised as an attempt to tap into and exploit those feelings, or even as an extremely misguided attempt to make Kris happy.
I should also add that, now that we know whatās in Chapter 5ās Weird Route, āeverything about it is wrongā could also be referring to the answer itself. Because it is wrong, as in 'incorrect'. A lot of people suspected that Kris and Noelle would end up on a Ferris wheel date in the Weird Route, but that didn't happen - instead, Susie rode with both of them separately. This response as well as the 'festival' one (That's what you want, isn't it? [...] That's what all of this was for!) feels a bit like poking fun at people predicting incorrectly where the Weird Route was likely to go. So then, isn't it interesting that this is the same chapter where if you use a weird roundabout method in the Normal Route, you can see Kris and Noelle ride the Ferris wheel together?
I have a theory that you can choose any noun in the English language, add the word 'theory' to it, and you will somehow be able to bend it into a semi-comprehensible Deltarune theory. I call this 'Keyword Theory'
separately, where do you think the romance stuff is headed?
Hello, thanks for your questions! :) I ended up writing a lot for this, so please bear with me!!
General thoughts on Chapter 5:
Chapter 5 was The Love Chapter in my eyes, which was what I was part-expecting and part-hoping for. Seeing all the romance-related flavour text and dialogue in the first ~10-15 minutes had me pacing around my living room going "oh my god, are you serious, this is it, this is it", and the chapter as a whole has made me very very firm in my belief that love is a major theme of this game. (Also, making Kris lovesick and jealous is basically everything I could have asked for in terms of where their character would go.)
I did have mixed feelings on the chapter in general after my first playthrough - I was a bit confused by the much lighter tone off the back of Chapter 4, there were parts that felt overly fangame-y, and for as much as I like the new platforming playstyle I actually think Deltarune does have a feature creep problem. However, now that I've had time to process it and I've also watched my partner (who is an ultra-casual player) play through it, I'm much more okay with Chapter 5 and I think I have a better sense for how it's likely to fit into the larger story.
Firstly, there is an empty, eerie feeling at the beginning which flows naturally from the end of Chapter 4, so the contrast between that and the Castle Town/Festival segment feels very stark in a way that I think might actually be meant to convey the unease that Kris is quietly feeling - I had a pit in my stomach throughout the whole Castle Town section, but I don't think this is a common experience?? The positivity coming off of everyone else in these scenes felt very "let's ignore our problems, this is the calm before the storm", and I wonder if it's meant to make you feel confused and uncomfortable. If this was the intention, it probably should have been made clearer. But I'm not Toby Fox, so who knows what he's going for - ultimately it remains to be seen whether he will pull it off.
There are also a lot of different tensions that are brushed over instead of addressed (eg. Susie becoming more and more attached to the Dark Worlds, Kris' allegiance/motives being directly questioned by Flowery, Kris' jealousy towards Susie and Noelle's relationship), and everything seems to indicate that these festering problems will come to a head in Chapters 6 and 7. There may be some foreshadowing/parallels in the Dark World storyline of Flowery trying to get Asgore to live in fantasy and forget his real problems, but ultimately being unable to avoid a conflict where someone gets hurt. That last "let's go, Fun Gang!" (or whatever name you chose) before the gauntlet up to Flowery felt very much like "this is the last time you will see these characters this united and this happy".
As for the romance stuff:
First of all, Chapter 5 puts the mystery of Kris' heart on display in every way that it possibly can with them remaining a silent protagonist. Most people are at least noticing that 'Kris feels bad' or 'Kris seems jealous' in relation to Susie and Noelle's relationship. But Kris' romantic feelings, and their apparent desire to love and be loved, are likely going to be central to understanding why Kris is doing what they're doing in the main storyline. Blue points out that all of the Fun Gang are there because of love, but is conveniently cut short before explaining what that means for Kris:
Remember that the flowers (certainly Flowery and Seth) are aware that Kris opened the Fountain and likely has opposing aims to Susie and Ralsei. So this is implying that Kris is carrying out their plan because of love.
There's debate about whether Kris is crushing on Susie or Noelle or both of them - my answer to this is that both are evidenced, so both are possible. But I don't think that love for Susie can realistically be a motivating factor in Kris working alongside the Knight, because they didn't know each other that well before Chapter 1 and Susie used to bully Kris quite badly - at most, Kris could've had a somewhat masochistic crush on her from afar. Would they really 'sell their soul' or risk their life for that? If so, why?? To me, it's much more likely that Kris would take the risk for the sake of a childhood friend who they may have longstanding feelings towards. Exactly how their plan would benefit Noelle or anyone else is yet to be explained, of course.
Add to this the scene at the bath between Kris and Susie, where in both routes Susie can express that she used to be jealous of Kris and Noelle because she thought they were "a thing", which is basically the game waving a huge flag saying "THIS is the wedge that's going to be driven between these two characters", and I find it difficult to imagine that Noelle isn't the focal point of Kris' jealousy.
One way or another, I think it will eventually come out that Kris has feelings for Noelle, leading to interpersonal problems within the whole group. But that doesn't mean that I think Kriselle is endgame in the Normal Route - I think they're doomed regardless. If nothing else, the likelihood that Kris will survive to the end is getting progressively lower (taking the golden flower seeds, being more visibly affected by SOUL removals every chapter, etc). Additionally, so many of Kris and Noelle's interactions are optional that it feels like second or third playthrough content, so I don't imagine that all of their issues will be cleanly resolved in two chapters.
On the Suselle side of things, it seems extremely unlikely that Noelle will react well to being shown the Dark Worlds and being told that it wasn't a dream after all, especially since her father's health has taken a turn for the worse. That said, Noelle in the Normal Route is quite a passive character, so I actually don't think she's going to blow up at Susie and the Fun Gang right away. She'll be upset, but it might be more like, "Susie? Why didn't you?? Tell me magic was real???? Even though my dad is dying??????" If her (currently) unused item dialogues are anything to go by, I think we're looking at a growing resentment rather than an explosive break-up. Some of her lines seem more annoyed or sarcastic than we're used to from her, so it's possible that she'll regain some of the ability to stand up for herself that she gained in Chapter 2 now that she knows that it was real. Some lines also read as though Susie isn't there, so she may choose to avoid Susie for a while and hang out more with Kris and/or Ralsei. If she does spend more time with Kris, then there's an opportunity for Noelle's feelings to become more complicated as well. But in the end, I don't know whether Suselle will 'break up' in the Normal Route. I do think that their relationship will at least become strained. (I actually have this totally unfounded idea that if Kris ends up dead or incapacitated by the end of the game, the Normal Route ending could involve an endgame Suselle who are trying their best to make things work but are kind of miserable without Kris in their lives.)
The Weird Route continues to be associated with a corrupted sort of love. Chapters 4 and 5 took the romantic subtext of Chapter 2 and developed it into two intensely intimate and romantically charged scenes that go horribly wrong. Some of Chapter 5's lines feel so close to a love confession that when I'm feeling especially insane I wonder whether they've been ripped directly from a Skies Forever Blue-style true ending scene:
It's impossible to know exactly what will happen in Chapter 7's Weird Route, because if Kris and Noelle have left the bounds of their world, we really have no framework for what they might encounter. But since Noelle is relying on Kris/the player to tell her to do these impossible things, I imagine they'll stick together, even if they end up making each other worse.
I am also still inclined to believe in a Secret Third Route that involves Kris and Noelle actually getting the chance to communicate and reconnect, because right now it feels like something is always standing in the way of that even if you as the player were to choose every option that tries to encourage it. Almost like you're stuck on a set path? So here's another completely unfounded idea: what if completing the Weird Route were necessary to create the conditions to make those choices matter? Noelle is still the only character in Deltarune to ever be explicitly described as having Determination, that power to decide (determine) the fate of the world. Imagine Noelle escaping her world and altering it from the outside, effectively creating a new world where she and everyone else is free to 'break from the path'. If that created a better outcome, would the suffering involved in the Weird Route be okay? Would that make it better? It's an interesting dilemma. Anyway, it's just an idea.
If there were a third route like that, does this mean that Kriselle would end up in a canon romantic relationship by the end? Not necessarily, but given how much the possibility of that happening between them has been teased, I definitely don't think it's unlikely.
So to summarise:
Normal Route: probably strained Suselle or no relationships
Weird Route: fucked up scary codependent Kriselle
Secret Third Thing: Kriselle reconciliation and possible genuine romance
