Ramb is a parallel for Gaster, or something like that.
Which could mean nothing.
This post isn't in my usual style, I just wanted to make note of something interesting. I feel like maybe the last person on the planet to notice, but if I am, no one has said anything so far, so I’m sharing my thoughts anyway.
Ramb as a character is defined by his unimportance. In fact, that is the point, as his intended forgettable-ness is one of his main character traits: there is a quiz in TV World that asks what his name is with a deliberate misspelling; that same misspelling is part of the Spamton Sweepstakes; the Pippins that shows up post-Statue Ramb says that no one will remember/miss him (paraphrased); and Kris doesn't even take him to Castle Town at the end of chapters 3&4, implying they either don’t like him, don’t care enough to bring him, or just forgot. Funny enough, in highlighting his unimportance, the story actually makes you more likely to remember him.
If you saw my previous post about Goners, you'll recall that I linked the Darkner Statues to them thematically, and noted the recurring theme in UTDR of "lost" things being grayscale. Ramb is one of three major Darkners that we have seen turn to stone (the other two being Rouxls, who has visual connection to Gaster, and Lancer, who is part of the prophecy.)
This is very curious because unlike both Rouxls and Lancer, we have no idea why Ramb himself turns to stone. Rouxls and Lancer are both stated to be a part of the original Card Kingdom dark world, so their petrification makes sense, but as far as we know, Ramb shouldn't turn to stone because there is no other dark world for him to belong to. One could argue that he belongs to the Cyber City dark world because he was a power strip taken from the library, but this doesn't make sense either, because there are plenty of objects that were moved around prior to the creation of their initial dark world that do not become petrified—Pippins and Goulden Sams are everywhere, and Pink’s object was originally given to Asgore by “a friend” (Alphys) and yet clearly neither Pink nor her Ghost are statues. The explanation that Pippins gives for his petrification is no help—it simply says he "never really belonged", which is more suspicious than anything.
But the logistics of his stonyness are not important here. Thematically, him petrifying ties in with his character of being lost or forgotten—he is supposedly irrelevant to the characters and the narrative, and no one will mourn him… except, this is a misdirection. He is quite famously VERY important!
Ramb's character motivation, his "purpose", is explicitly stated to be linked to the Mantle minigame. He says as much to Kris directly. He acts buddy-buddy with Kris and tells them that he just wants the best for them, because he believes Kris wants freedom. He believes the best way to do this is to let Kris play Mantle—in other words, “Kris thinks Tenna's game is boring? Here's the original, it’s fun! Kris wants freedom to play the game that they enjoy more? Here's your freedom to choose! It’s all for Kris’ enjoyment.” Whether or not this game is ‘fun’ or ‘enjoyable’ is debatable, but regardless that is his intention.
Ramb is important because without him, we would not have the Mantle game, and the Sword Route would cease to exist. You know, the Sword Route. The thing that foreshadows future chapters, is a direct parallel to the Weird Route, introduces Normal Route players to the concept of the Weird Route, gives characterization to Kris and Noelle, and… foreshadows Deltarune?
Yes, Mantle itself is, of course, a stand-in for Deltarune. For one, there's the Weird Route connection. For another, at the beginning of Mantle, Kris connects to HERO_SWORD via the SOUL (or at least, what appears to be the SOUL) in a direct parallel to us as the player connecting with them. There's also the fact that HERO_SWORD is literally just Kris, not to mention that the enemies inside of it are representative of other NPCs. But I digress.
If we believe Device Theory to be true (or at least, mostly true—which we have sound reason to believe it is) then we can safely assume Gaster is the reason that the player is connected to Deltarune in the first place. Gaster, who created Deltarune or at least the player's connection to it. It's "his" Deltarune. He allows us, the player, to experience Deltarune and—given that the name of the original chapter 1 demo was “SURVEY_PROGRAM” and his yandere tendencies on Twitter—he seems to want us to enjoy that experience. He is also ‘lost’ and ‘forgotten’ much like Ramb is, in the most literal sense. (See my post about Goners for more on that.)
So. We have a character that gives the player access to a video game where that player connects to the protagonist with a soul. This game apparently only has one ending. The character that gives the player access to the game is directly stated to be unimportant or forgotten, despite playing a large role in the narrative. That game has a set ending, and that character assumes that the player will be happy with this ending. That character wants to allow the player to have fun and freedom, and hopes that the player enjoys their game.
I do think there is at least one snafu here—namely, Gaster has stated that he wants to create a “new” future, which could imply that Deltarune existed previously with one ending and he desires a different one. In that sense, Gaster could be seen more akin to Tenna. But that is mostly conjecture because we don’t know what Gaster’s end-goal even is or what he means by "new." Also, Deltarune notably has two routes, whereas MANTLE only has one—unless we are taking Tenna’s boards into consideration, of course. Even still, both the TV Time boards/Mantle only have ‘one’ ending, just as Deltarune claims to.
Of course, I doubt that Ramb and Gaster are directly linked, moreso that this is intended to be direct foreshadowing on Toby’s part. Unless you are living in complete denial, you likely believe (as do I) that Gaster will be the final boss of Deltarune or at least be confronted at some point. So it’s likely, from what we know so far, that Gaster echoes those same sentiments that Ramb has—wanting the player to have fun, wanting to give the player freedom, wanting to allow the player to complete the game at any cost.
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