Guys, this is gonna sound crazy... I have a Deltarune theory. This just in, biggest theory hater has a theory! Well, I struggle to call this a "theory," in terms of trying to predict what happens next. I more mean a literary inalasis of something I've noticed that I haven't seen yet. I won't take full credit for this realization, shoutout to this comment on evidentlyfresh’s weird route original song “SAY THE WORD” for knocking over the dominoes and making me go “OH SHIT, THEYRE RIGHT!”
Noelle is Deltarune’s Chara.
Chara is corrupted by the LV you gain during the genocide route, convinced that growing stronger is a good thing, even when it’s their own family and subjects being cut down. They become nothing more than a game mechanic, a number going up, the sensation of growing stronger. They are no longer a person, but a weapon to be used, and when you throw them away, they lash out. Just like how you influence Chara to accept the violence, you manipulate Noelle into committing atrocious acts on the basis of “getting stronger.” “That feeling you get when a number increases? That’s me.”
By the time you finish the genocide route, you can’t go back. If you go through the pacifist route afterwards, Chara will corrupt it. Once you reach chapter 5, you can’t abort the weird route any longer. Chara will take your soul even if you deny their deal, and Noelle will drag you into the lake even as you’re begging her to stop. If you do the weird route on a different save, it will corrupt your other saves and it will know you have done the weird route, just like how the game remembers you’ve done a genocide route after a pacifist one.
Both Chara and Noelle break their respective games. Chara is dead, they aren’t suppose to be here, and yet here they are in front of you. But this isn’t really Chara, this isn’t the fallen human child raised by the dremmurs, who sacrificed themself to save monsterkind. This is the game of Undertale itself talking to you, using the one thing you haven’t killed as a vessel to speak directly to you. The game has tried to punish you through its characters, but you are a being outside the game itself, so Chara punishes you in a way that Sans or Undyne or Mettayon never could; destroying itself.
Noelle manages to shatter the prophecy, the set track that the game itself runs on. Two of the prophesied heroes are likely dead, the chapter 5 fountain is never made, there is no king in asylum or inferno of jealousy, and chapter 6 is entirely skipped. Noelle managed to kill darkness, something that shouldn’t even be possible, and broke how chapter 2 is supposed to go. You don’t even fight Queen! Now Noelle has managed to break the very fabric and code of the game, somehow managing to break out of bounds and escape the game itself, just like Chara accomplished.
Chara seeks to take control away from the player, to be the consequences to their actions. You can try to back out, beg Noelle to stop, but she won’t. You may have control over Kris, but you have lost control of Noelle. These are the consequences to your actions, and Noelle is the harbinger of your punishment, just like Chara does to you in Undertale. You sought to prove that your actions do matter and in a way you sucseeded. Things have changed, irreversibly so. But that sweet sweet freedom you wanted to achieve by breaking this game, the control you tried to reach for, was taken from you right before you could grasp it. Since when were you the one in control?
One could even say that telling Noelle to “proceed” is the same as calling upon the demon that comes when you call its name. What is a demon if not a fallen angel? But you want to know the nail in the coffin for this comparison?
This face… doesn’t it seem a little…
When going into Deltarune, I was confident that Kris was this universe’s Chara. Asriel’s sibling, the adopted human child of the dremmurs, wielding a knife with red eyes, able to confront the player directly and take back control from us. I still believe that, even after all I’ve said, but I interpret it differently now. Kris is the pacifist version of Chara, the one trying to save their world and their family, deeply troubled and even violent, but still trying to do good. Asriel says that Chara wasn’t exactly a good person in the end of the pacifist route, and Kris isn’t innocent either. Clearly they have violent tendencies, as proof by the egg rooms, but just like Chara, they’re just a kid.
Weird route Noelle is the Genocide version of Chara, the one who’s sense of self was taken over by the player and replaced by ever increasing LV, used as a weapon to destroy the game’s inhabitancies, and soon the game itself, and the vessel for the game itself to teach you a lesson. It seems that Noelle has accomplished the opposite, taking over the game to prove to the player they were never in control of her, try as they might.
Ok, on to the actual prediction part of theorizing. Deltarune takes a lot of Toby’s unused songs and repurposes them. Soamoton Neo’s theme is a revamped version of the unused full version of Power of Neo, the dark fountain contains Penumbral Phantasm, and Sumset of Seven Suns is older than even Undertale itself. I believe that in chapter 7’s weird route, we’re going to get a revamped version of Megalo Strikes Back for Noelle and/or Kris, bringing their collections to Chara full circle.
Now, there’s one thing that Chara has accomplished that Noelle is yet to achieve; destroy the world. If the LV you gained through the genocide route is enough for Chara to delete their own world, then who’s to say Noelle can’t do the same? She’s already broken the game, managed to clip through the bounds and likely end up in the Depths where Gaster is, who’s to say she can’t go further? I predict that Noelle will manage to break the game so much, it will fail to function. A fatal error that cannot be fixed that causes the whole game to crash and their world to cease functioning, damning her own world to oblivion. Snowgrave is fatal after all… perhaps this is in the form of The Knight, for those who like Amalgamate Knight theory. It would send the Chara correlations even farther, as Chara fused together with Asriel to become a godlike being. (Still better than Rudy Knight 🖕)
Perhaps in the normal route, Kris end up playing a role similar to Chara. It’s Chara’s memories and experiences with Asriel that allow you to save him, and Chara is the last person that you have to save. Perhaps it’s Kris’ bond with Dess that the player lacks that allows you to save her, Dess knight or not. Like Pink, it’s you and Kris working together that saves her and completes the prophecy, just like Chara, the prophesied angel if Undertale’s prophecy. Just like how Chara is the angel that saves the underworld in the pacifist route, and the angel that damns it in the genocide route, Kris is the normal route’s angel while Noelle is the Weird Route’s angel.
Shoutout to Katantuu’s video on Chara, their video is a big reason as to why I believe Chara at the end of the genocide route isn’t actually Chara but instead the game of Undertale itself, and I used their interpretation of them to compare Noelle to a lot. I totally reccomend checking it out! https://youtu.be/GS57LtDiN4Q?si=L4dWCbi8nPAiGKzl
Now, am I cooking or am a washed? Maybe I’ll get referenced in a deltarune theory video, YouTubers always reference tumblr posts pointing out things they noticed. If so, hi YouTube!
