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Deltarune Chapter 6 Theories!

Just to be clear off the bat: this is mainly just semi-structured rambling on my thoughts on what might happen next, just to write it all down. As consequence; some ideas are more fleshed out & original than others.

First and foremost what I wanna talk about is the theme: which I feel is going to be a sense of Dread & Anxiety. This is the penultimate chapter where everything could go wrong, a lot will go wrong, but we don't know what. We know things are gonna look bad by chapter's end, but we don't know exactly how they'll look bad. That's the vibe I expect.

Starting conflict

So everyone's had this thought and I'm not getting to original ideas quite yet: we all know Susie is gonna show Noelle the Dark World, we'll probably have a fun Castle Town sequence with her, but I think getting Noelle on board is...not really gonna go to plan.

The biggest sticking point will be that Noelle will learn healing magic is real and that she has it, just after her dad Fell Down. (For the sake of stakes; presume he's still alive.) Now it's possible Noelle will be mad this was kept from her when she could've healed her dad already, or that Susie lied to her, or that Susie & Kris just wanna use her to get to the Shelter, or maybe the character conflict will be Susie opposing Noelle making a Dark World. All good sources of drama, but none of them change the broad course of the story: Suselle have their first fight as a couple and Noelle leaves to try and heal her dad.

Conveniently, Noelle being in a bad mental state over her dad and mad at the Dark World's existing means Toby can basically play the broad strokes of the above set-up out in any aborted weird routes.

Dark World

Now, one of the most basic questions that comes up when speculating about a future chapter is "where's the Dark World for this one?" For the first time in a long time, we aren't sure; but the most popular picks are Noelle's house or the Hospital for the pretty obvious reason that there were Noelle is likely to make one. (There are also fans who think we're gonna get both missing Shelter Codes in the Light World sequence and head to the Shelter for the chapter. But I'm not among them.)

Which of the two do I think we're getting?

Both. I think we could get two Dark Worlds at once in the chapter.

Couple reasons why:

The idea of having to go between and tackle multiple Dark Worlds feels like one of the few dynamics we haven't seen yet (and most of the rest I can think of, like a town-wide Dark World, feel best saved for the end anyway.

If Kris is going between two Dark Worlds for the chapter, that means we can get mid-chapter Light World events, or even a mid-chapter trip to Castle Town. We've never done either of those before, so it sounds cool.

While there's overlap in what the Holiday House and Hospital can each offer, the do each have their own strengths.

It's a unique gimmick that wouldn't be hard to program, lining up with Toby saying this chapter is easier to make, and

It heightens that Dread & Anxiety I talked about. This is the most Dark Fountains open at once since chapter 4, and without them being next to each other this time. I can easily see this leading to Ralsei believing we're teetering on the edge of the Roaring (as in one more, which the Knight could make at any time, would tip us over).

So, general set-up: Susie & Kris head after Noelle and go to her house, only to find a Dark World. Susie thinks Noelle made it. She didn't. Either the Roaring Knight, or Carol, or maybe Kris again did. Due to some form of circumstance, Kris alone leaves this Dark World to go to the hospital and finds Nolle make/has already made a Dark World there instead. As a result, our dynamic is this: Susie spends most of the chapter in the Holiday House World and Noelle spends most of the chapter in the Hospital World, with Kris and Ralsei doing a lot of going between (Ralsei because he has the easiest time of it, Kris because...they're the protagonist). Susie may even intentionally not go the Hospital World when she finds out Noelle's there instead because she wants to give her space or whatever reason teenagers have no not talk to their girlfriends.

Whatever; point is this is how the game gets around our 3-character party limit for now. There'll be a lot of shuffling part members around; but for a while we'll generally have Kirs, Susie, and Ralsei in the Holiday House and Kris, Noelle, and Ralsei in the Hospital. (Bonus points: we finally get some long awaited Ralselle interactions from Ralsei helping to heal Rudy.)

The Hospital

I'll be going over the hospital World first because...well frankly, there's so much going for the Holiday House that this one feels like it needs to be justified the most.

Not that a hospital world wouldn't have a lot going for it. An expected aura of desperately holding onto life in the face of impending death would fit well with that Dread & Anxiety theme, especially if Noelle is here to save her dad w/ Ralsei. And if theories are true Kris got psychiatric help here, well that can be explored too.

But the biggest thing we get from this Dark World is:

Berdly. This is the only Dark World where we can get important Berdly; because in many routes, he's comatose in his bed here, and might still be getting his arm checked some others. Heck, maybe he's just here for his friend in a total pacifist route. In a chapter 4 or 5 aborted weird route though; he might be, uh...like Gerson...so that's fun. Point is though, this is the only place Toby can write Berdly to be in every route, so it's the only way we can get chapter 2 Berdly again.

As for the goal here: obviously it's getting Noelle and Ralsei to Rudy to try and heal him, because with these kids' luck, of course they will not be right where they want to be. Heck, maybe the head Darkner thinks Noelle is too dangerous to see her father because she has the knife she stabbed the ground with, idk. Point is, it's not easy.

(Also if Alvin, Toriel or whoever has the Deltarune Shelter Code was seeing Rudy and could give that to us at some point, it'd be real convenient.)

Holiday House

But there's a lot the Holiday House has going for it too, I mean there's a reason it's the most popular pick: Ice castle theme, Christmas decoration Darkners, super rad Dess' Guitar Darkner, Noelle & Kris history, Dess insights, highly climbable tree, multiple mysterious rooms we wanna see inside of, heck it's the friggin' house of one of our effective main villains Carol Holiday and the best possible level to fight her.

Do I even need to go into more detail on why it's good? Everyone I see online seems pretty sold on the Holiday House Dark World already. I'm more selling the idea of this Dark World sharing a chapter then selling the location itself.

Plot premise is pretty simple: Susie heads in thinking Noelle is here, stays because she's not ready to face Noelle after their argument, learns more about Kris & Noelle's past as she does, and stumbles her way into confronting Big Bad Carol Holiday in the process of avoiding her girlfriend after their fight. Bonus points if the Holiday House Darkners see the Delta Warriors as outsiders & traitors, and we get this general sense that everything would be much easier with Noelle here but alas.

Conflict resolution

So I said that largely we'd see Susie in the Holiday House & Noelle in the Hospital with Kris & Ralsei jumping to & fro, yes?

Well I think that will last until, oh let's say the two thirds mark?

At that point: Kris will bring Noelle & Ralsei to Rudy. They'll try to heal him, and...it won't work. They do nothing for him. (Optional element: the Hospital's head Darkner is acting hostile/outright attacking the gang as this happens. just to make it worse.)

Noelle is despondent; thinking this might all be for nothing and she'll still loss her dad: when a wild Susie appears! And like with Jackenstin; her unorthodox healing works much better for Rudy. (To what degree? Eh, depends on how Toby wants Rudy's plot to end. Toby can make this one of the anxiety points that turns out fine if he wants...or he can still kill him. Options and all.)

Hospital conflict resolved, plus or minus an encounter with the Roaring Knight since that could be interesting, and the group now heads over to the Holiday House to control Noelle's mom.

And have a much easier time of it. The Darkners are a lot more accommodating to the team with Noelle here, akin to the Flowers accommodating to Asgore; allowing a near straight shot to Carol for the final boss.

Secret bosses & such

Before going over the climax, I may as well go over what we know of the optional subplots and my theories there on. (Although I don't really have much original to say so it's mostly just what we already know.) There are 3 big things to talk about that, near as we can presently tell, will be part of chapter 6...unless of course any of this is pushed to chapter 7. I guess that means my theory is all of this is in chapter 6 then, because that sounds more fun.

1. The next step/end of the Shadow Crystal subplot First off, we know if we beat all the secret bosses up to this point, we should be meeting with Seam to do something "very, very interesting" with the 5 shadow crystals. Thanks to some UI spoilers from all the way back in chapter 2; it seems they'll fuse into something called a Pure Crystal. What is this, what do we do with it, and what happens next? No real idea. Basic pattern recognition tells me it's probably gonna lead us into a secret boss though. It's the secret boss subplot after all. Maybe we'll fight Seam themself, that could be cool.

2. The Twisted Sword Second off, I lied earlier. We do know one thing we can do with the Pure Crystal; get Malius to use it & the Thorn Ring to forge the mysterious Twisted Sword. This is interesting because you can only have both items under really specific circumstance that we'll be able to meet in chapter 6. You have to beat all the Secret Bosses up to now, and start a weird route, but quit when you get the Thorn Ring without equipping it to Noelle & killing Berdly. So what's so special about the Twisted Sword? Well it's a weapon for Kris...with the same/a similar status effect to what made the Thorn Ring allow Noelle to kill Berdly. So that's intriguing. Add in how this means we can't use the Pure Crystal for whatever you'd do with it on the normal route; and people are thinking this might lead to us getting a Weird Route 2: Kris Edition, where Kris does messed up stuff directly. Hard to say for sure what that entails when we're just going off them getting an evil sword, but it should be interesting.

3. The Eggs & FRIEND Last subplot we got signalled will be changing gears this chapter is the Egg hunt; because the Egg Man Behind the Tree told us there aren't any more if you got them all. And at the time of chapter 5's release I was ready to think "well I guess that's it, we concluded the Easter Egg hunt in the last funny chapter, that makes sense. Sure was fun"...And then chapter 5 got an update tying the eggs to that scary face we sometimes see in the background/fought as minions in the boss to get the Shadow Mantle; revealing it to represent an army of evil cats that want protein & are now targeting Kris for collecting so many Eggs. So...I guess that'll be a thing to deal with next chapter as a yet additional optional(?) boss.

(Oh hey what a coincidence that means we're expecting 2 secret bosses in the chapter I'm theorizing could have 2 Dark Worlds. Funny that.)

Finale

But we must return to the main story; and like I said, things can't end on a good note here. It's the penultimate chapter, so things must go wrong here at the end.

We could get the Roaring in this chapter; but I expect a long-awaited disaster of a different kind.

Noelle & the team will confront her mom. Maybe we'll get some lore drops, maybe they'll again be saved for the last chapter. But one thing I do think we'll finally get, is the Kris traitor reveal; where everyone learns Kris is working with the Knight.

Maybe we'll get some reason why, but I wouldn't be surprised if not. An event like this in chapter 6 isn't for explaining Kris, it's for hurting the team. Especially Susie.

From there I expect Kris will run away with the Knight. Susie, Noelle, & Ralsei will be at their lowest, but won't take things lying down now that they have the Shelter Code from Dess's guitar. (And if the team doesn't get the last one from the Hospital...maybe they can just conveniently get the code from the Fire Extinguisher again.)

And chapter 6 will end on Susie and Noelle (and Ralsei but you know) ready to storm the final dungeon to look for Kris and save the town.

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