DELTARUNE SPOILERS for chapter 3-4 and a little bit of the sweepstakes
I am extremely detached from Deltarune theorizing on this website, but I wanted to have my hand at it on a discussion that Iāve been having with some friends and also been hearing online - who is the Knight that we see in Chapter 3 and 4?
To me, three theories are compelling, but I have a preference for one of them. The first two involve members of the Holiday family - December and Carol. I think itās fair to say that the knightās design lends itself well to these, and Iāll go in depth later. The last is that the Knight is fear, or some other abstract idea.
Moving forward immediately, I think any character we have met thus far (and Iām not considering additional characters) who is considered a candidate has to match the distinctive horns that the knight has - Rudy has no chance at this, Asgoreās are not similar at all, and if anyone suggests Asriel I have a few questions for them. And the vessel has no options to have antlers or horns of any kind. This leaves Dess and the mayor.
December is my preferred interpretation of who the Knight is. The amount of baseball references in the design - their baseball bat they summon, the way they move around as a two-section ball - are too similar to things that we know about Dess, from her room and the song that is sung in chapter 3. The knightās hesitation to hurt Kris after beating them, Krisā inability to swoon, and Krisā assumed position with them also indicates some kind of prior relationship, which we know from the sweepstakes that Kris has. I think that these specific instances provide the most solid evidence as for why the Knight is Dess, alongside other things that weāll get into later.
Unrelated, Iāve seen people say that the way the knife/katana/bat is put on them to make Kris kneel is similar to a knighting, something I really like. It feels a bit like passing on a mantle, or recognizing another knight. If this interpretation is to be believed, then the knight cannot know the future (or, theoretically, previous loops) in any way, or Susie would have been knighted as well, nor can Ralsei have opened a fountain. I donāt think either of these ideas are revelatory in any way, but I think they have merit to be said, especially because the Knight has at least one shadow crystal on them. This argument might be countered by saying that the knight would only recognize those who have already fulfilled their knight role in the story, but that does not make much sense to me - knight titles feel like something that would be constant through loops, and also like something that could be given preemptively as well.
The Mayor is another tempting theory. Given Krisā calls in chapter four, and her giant freaking katana?? in her kitchen which aligns with the Knightās blade, this works. A piece of evidence I havenāt seen anyone bring up yet is that when you beat the Knight, they put their blade on Krisā shoulder. When Carol returns and says that āyou are welcome here at any timeā, she puts her hand on the same shoulder as the Knight does. Itās a far cry, but I think that a similar pattern of motion is something we should consider. However, I donāt think that this evidence remotely shuts down the idea that Dess is the Knight. To start, I think that Carolās impact on her childrenās life cannot be overstated. Noelle in sweepstakes and canon dialogue has talked in lengths about how scared she is of her own mother. Dess seems to have rebelled from her motherās standards, but if she wanted to appear intimidating and dangerous, she would have a perfect role model already laid out for her. I think that the katana connection is further questioned by the fact that if you manage to break a piece of the Knightās weapon off, the katana is unchanged. I donāt think that the Knightās blade is referential to the Mayorās katana any more than Dess would reference her motherās katana when trying to conjure something dangerous.
Following in the idea that Dess may share some of her motherās tendencies, I think that the alliances that the Knight has with Kris and the alliance Carol has with Kris distinguish the mayor from the Knight. I admit that a lot of my lines get blurry, especially if you consider the phone call that Kris makes after Susie gets the guitar and the mayorās surprise appearance, but I think that the Knightās connection is to Kris above the player. There is no player input when the Knight interacts with Kris without player control (when they kneel to them when down and after battling), and the Knight is much more aggressive towards Kris when the player is inhabiting them. Tying this to the idea that December is the Knight, I think that Dess would be able to rationalize violence much more easily towards a puppeteer of Kris than to Kris themself.
The mayor, and even the calls the mayor has with Kris (whaaatt a logical leap where) when they are without soul, focuses on Kris, but there is a respect or acceptance of the player. The call references the fact that Kris needs to keep the soul for some purpose later on - Kris is obviously valued, but the soul has an important place as well in the mayorās plan. This is especially emphasized when she puts the word you in red. How diegetic this change of color is unclear, and so too is whether characters in Deltarune can choose their speech color is as well. I will throw out, though, that the few times text color and font historically in these games is by the skeletons themselves and a certain Gastery guy. If anyone was to change their speech on a higher level to confuse or make something clear specifically to the player, it was them - and now the mayor is using these strategies as well. But the only person who can āhearā this color is not in the game, itās the player. The mayor is welcoming Kris back, but she equally is saying that yes, the player is welcome at any time as well. The value she has for the player and the value the Knight demonstrates specifically only for Kris do not align, but they would if the Knight was Dess instead.
The last theory Iāve heard is that the Knight represents fear. I admit that I havenāt heard an in depth analysis of justification and reasoning for this theory, and I am absolutely interested in this interpretation. Iām not convinced that each person who saw the Knight experienced it differently (as I would assume you would if it was fear). What the player saw cannot change person by person, but Susie at least experiences the Knight the same way that Kris does (assuming that the way Kris does is the way we do) or she would have a difficult time with the physical action she takes against the night. Fear is deeply personal, and something that I donāt think would take the same shape as this knight. I want to build off of this. Thereās obviously been some change to Dess inside the shelter or otherwise that has changed her. Last I checked, the Knight wouldnāt exactly fit naturally inside Hometown. The Knightās armor is described as black, as dark. Pulling from what Ralsei described at the beginning of Chapter 3, I think that an abundance of fear, of darkness clinging to her would be an interesting way to describe what happened that caused a transformation. Additionally, concepts in Deltarune usually require some physical form to at least reference in order to become tangible. Gasterās followers are versions of other characters, Darkners are explorations of physical objects, and who knows what the vessel and Ralsei are. But, there has to be something that āfearā can distill itself into. Based on the unused code, I would be absolutely rabid if Dessā experience led her to become some form of ideal candidate to carry something out a la Device Theory. If Dessā fear grew into the Knight as a kind of outer shell, this would work well to explain the similarities between the Knight and the mayor - itās Decemberās fears made physical. What I mean to say is that there is obviously an addition to the Knight that is not just Dess, and I think that our knowledge of the way that darkness works, how created ideas work, and what Dess has gone through, could allow the theory that Dess is the Knight and fear is the Knight to coexist - Dessā fear led her in some way to become the Knight.
Those are my big points, Iām going to be so real though I donāt think that much of what I said is original, but I think that it is important to discuss the Knightās identity and, in turn, goals, as a whole before the community moves forwards with an incomplete picture of what the Knight is exactly. Let me know if thereās anything obvious and glaring Iāve missed out on!
EDIT: this is from a reply I received that I think is important to talk about! Their argument was: if Dess is the Knight, then Carol would have stopped searching for Dess. However, Carol hasnāt; as such, Dess cannot be the Knight.
I agree that Carol is searching for Dess, but I donāt see how this ongoing search disqualifies Dess from being the Knight if the mayor does not know about the identity of the Knight. Thereās no evidence I know of that Carol knows about the Knightās identity; though I readily admit she may know about the Knight as a force, I doubt she has seen the Knight or has information about them that would make her question whether the knight is Dess, so she would continue searching even if Dess was the Knight. I think that Dess being the Knight doesnāt mean that Carol would stop searching for Dess. Beyond that, I think that Carolās continued search for Dess and the relationship of her goals to those of a Dess-Knight would set both the Knight and Carol up for an interesting story beat later on.
On the other hand, I also want to bring up a new argument for Carol Knight that I hadnāt considered before this argument. The Knightās position and abilities allow it to open Dark Fountains, and then move through them at incredible speed. If the Mayor was the Knight and believed that Dess was trapped in a Dark world, she would be in her right to open dark fountains in places that she associates with Dess, then move through them quickly to search. Carol Knight may actually have the advantage in this narrative, because the orders the Knight gives to Darkners seem to align with this goal: King traps Lightners where Carol can then see if Dess is present, Queen opens more dark fountains to expand the mayorās search, and Tenna captures Toriel, maybe for the ritual Carol mentions. However, the Knights orders work just as well with a Dess Knight: King trap Lightners to stop them from sealing Fountains, Queen copies their desire to open more fountains, and capturing Toriel seems to align in some way with the bunker (based on the three symbols, my guess is that Toriel would have worked well as the Deltarune, but Undyne was a prime candidate for the police badge so she was taken as an easier target). I donāt think that considering the Knightās actions in previous Dark worlds should be used as a primary way to filter Knight candidates because their actions were so vague (an argument that can pretty easily be validated by the Chapter 1-2 frenzy to identify the Knight that left literally every character and then some as a knight candidate). Rather, looking back might be a way to understand a Knight candidateās goals through a posterior lens, then theorize as to what their next step is.
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