Yes, I'm going to give all of my Deltarune posts a stupid punny title. Yes, I'm going to be writing Deltarune posts here, when I can remember to do so.
So, Chapter 5 gave me a lot of thoughts and a LOT of feelings. I'll detail the others in due course, but for now, I want to share a thought I had while experiencing the Weird Route, in particular with the choice to make Noelle's face mirror that of her mother, Carol.
One of the lingering mysteries of Chapter 4 was Carol's line that seemingly referenced us, the player, directly. Her collaboration with the Knight was well-established, but the degree to which she understood exactly what was going on was left largely a mystery. When she refers to "you" with red text, does she actually perceive you in that moment? Or does she simply know you are there listening to the conversation? Or does she only know that Kris is in possession of something otherworldly?
I believe that Noelle's faces during Chapter 5's Weird Route are a clue!
In fiction, especially the anime that Toby oh-so-loves to reference, especially in this very chapter, it is common for facial animations to be shared between characters, either for budget reasons or, for our purposes the more interesting the reason, because it demonstrates a connection between those characters. Whether it's a similar thought process, a similar reaction, or a similar state of mind, the more intentional examples of this technique within media are done to convey a continuity of thought, behaviour or opinion between one character and another, and this is doubly important when those characters are relatives.
Therefore, I believe these Noelle sprites prove that Carol's understanding of the world, during that conversation in Chapter 4, are equivalent to Noelle's during the Weird Route. Carol, in both routes, like her daughter, is aware of the set path ahead of her in life, that Carol can only do Carol things, and is made aware of a means to push beyond it, and said means involves us, acting through Kris.
How Carol came into possession of this knowledge is another unknown, but my best guess is that it was a result of Dess' disappearance and Asgore's subsequent investigation. How she was able to establish contact with the Knight without it cutting her into pieces is another unknown, although I believe that was because of Kris, whose connection to the Knight transcends hostility by virtue of their possession of something the Knight needs for its own ends.
I can't really go into any more detail without this post devolving into a Truman Show-esque analysis of the game-as-metaphor elements of Deltarune being an acknowledged and accepted component of reality in the form of symbols, and how characters such as Noelle wishing to break free are emblematic of a kind of ultimate form of escapism, where escape from reality is at its most potent and literal, because I'd need more evidence from later chapters to crystallise those particular thoughts, so instead, appreciate this unused field sprite of Noelle looking completely normal and trustworthy: