#deltarune roots

[solarskips]

Ralsei is Moss Theory

[birdsareblooming]

Quod est superius est sicut quod inferius, et quod inferius est sicut quod est superius.

[4rthstandbreak]

Roots, the egg, and the tail

In every chapter there is a Man behind the tree who gives you eggs.

To get the egg in chapter 4 you have to find the inverted egg in the hallway filled w stained glass, it's specifically the 100th window. In chapter 3 the Man says this:

When you enter the inverted egg window you'll see a small library and a path leading to this:

If you're not extremely tapped into Deltarune you wouldn't realize that the Spamton Sweepstakes, which happened in 2022, had updated with new links May this year, one of them being a game called "Rarecats" where you click on green dancing cats (similar to the Mike fight/Pluey). Playing Rarecats (which is now defunct and leads to "room_dogcheck" here's some gifs from the game). Clicking on the angel cat has a small chance to take you to the same stained glass window hallway from ch 4, and clicking on the inverted egg window takes you to https://deltarune.com/lostwheretheforestwouldgrow/ which leads to an image of a single tree from ROOTS and the title being "ROOTS" as well (documented here by a reddit user)

Back to ch 4, walking further past ROOTS is a Philosopher who says this:

Unscrambling the sentence gives us "Lost where the forest would grow, the children followed the pointed tail" (or at least that's what I assume it says) we'll come back to this later.

Back to the Deltarune website, there's a page called "the poor children" (https://deltarune.com/thepoorchildren/) and the page heading is "Therapy"

The page itself is a black screen where you can draw using ur mouse. If u draw for long enough a tree will pop up, the tree that the Man is behind

Clicking on the tree takes you to https://deltarune.com/egg/ which is Noelle's blogpost abt the egg "pet" in Cat Petters

The actual egg room in ch 4 is set in a hospital lobby with a layout different from the one in Hometown. The last Flying Ace is acting as the secretary and comments on how "knockoffs don't have the right to complain," implying this entire moment is based off of something from Kris's past. To get the egg you have to walk into the room with a tree on it

Walking into the room and finding the correct thing to interact w while in complete darkness plays a scene where Kris draws "what they saw behind the tree" but they mess up so they draw again over the previous drawing. They keep trying to draw until they don't even lift their hand off the canvas and just draw in a "single, wild line." Their drawing is then described as "nothing more than a monochrome smear." Then the box says : "Next, a tree was painted over it... ... painted over everything... ...leaving nothing but a simple still life... ... After all, there wasn't anything to look at in the room besides a single tree." This mirrors exactly what you can do on /thepoorchildren/ to get the tree to appear then to get to /egg/.

Back to the Philosopher and tails, Organikk (the enemy that looks exactly like Philosophers) has a couple battle lines mentioning tales/tails: "the tale that must be followed" (referring to the prophecy) and "the tail that must not be followed" (potentially referring to "the pointed tail")

In ch 4 in the third sanctuary if you go out of your way to get the Princess Ribbon this will appear right before you get to the chest

This is a piece of the prophecy intentionally hidden from the gang and the player

So. What does all of this mean?

I don't know! I don't have enough of the pieces to fully say. What I can say for sure is that:

1) We should be keeping an eye on the Deltarune website

2) The children (one of them being Kris) were in the forest and followed/encountered something. Whatever it was traumatized Kris enough to have their parents put them in art therapy, potentially not even located in Hometown. It's something that's permanently etched into Kris's mind. And it seems to be connected to the Man

Isn't it interesting that the Man only ever appears behind trees?

[moltz23]

DELTARUNE THEORY TIME (CHAPTER 5): THE TRUE MEANING OF "ROOTS"

So, with Chapter 5 finally out and some Weird Route shenanigans being uncovered (more on this later), one of the chapter's new lines struck with me for a while, that could very well explain what the heck "Roots" is supposed to mean in the context of the Prophecy.

During the Ch 5's Dark World, Flowery makes a lot of plant based puns. Like, a lot.

One of those lines however, happens to directly allude to Deltarune's multiple story branches.

"Pacifist root".

I'm currently still looking for the exact scene in which Flowery brings it up. But for the purposes of this theory, I was glad to find the Undertale wiki managed to caught on this as well:

For those not in the know, "Pacifist Root" is likely meant to be a spoof on the "Pacifist route" of Undertale, which is taken when the player makes a conscious effort to spare every enemy in the game.

So, what would this mean then for the Roots prophecy, based on this information? The fact "roots" can be "pacifist", "neutral", or "genocide?"

Simply put, it means the Prophecy itself acknowledges it has various story branches. Multiple roots, if you will.

Given current reveals at hand, we can at least determine there's 2 "main roots" so far:

Neutral/Pacifist Root: The root followed when you play the game normally, whether you try to recruit people or be as aggressive as possible.

Weird Root: The root that shows up when you start messing with the game's mechanics and get Noelle involved into the whole mess. And from the "Weird Root", 2 more branches appear:

And from the weird root, 2 more branches appear:

Normal Weird Root: As implied by this reddit thread, it's the version that happens only if you refuse to let Noelle warp-skip you into Chapter 7B, thus ensuring both Kris and Noelle have been "used up" (ie. you've done everything with both to ensure you remain in the Weird route, hinted by the jingle for escaping the weird route NEVER playing). As implied by the MANTLE videogame, The events of Chapters 5 to 7 still happen, but you're encouraged to be as violent as possible still, in order to become stronger and face the threat that lingers in the Bunker...

Forbidden Weird Root: It's what happens when you allow Noelle to warp-skip you into Chapter 7B, thus allowing you to reach the end of the "FORBIDDEN PATH". Unlike the "Normal Weird Root", Kris and Noelle are NOT "used up". What role they'll get to play into Chapter 7B is anyone's guess, as this outcome isn't covered up by the MANTLE videogame unlike the "Normal Weird Root"...

So yeah. Fairly straightforward stuff.

[nedohudoznichek]

death in poverty

Incoming call...

📞 📞

🎉🎉🎉🎄1225🎄🎉🎉🎉

It's already 1225 in my time zone!!! yuhu❤️‍🔥❄️🎄

Just want to wish all Americans a happy upcoming Friend Snack Day, the Second Flood, and…. something else... oh yeah, Merry Christmas

[unit-5b]

a lot of interpretations of the shelter dark world honestly feel too holy or natural/open when so far, the scenery we've gotten describing the roots (what the game calls the shelter dark world, depths seem to be a more metaphorical name describing how deep it is while roots more precisely describe it) is that of a dirty, probably mold filled underground complex and a claustrophobic, almost pitch black cave. like the game more often refers to it as hell so i feel like it wouldn't have the same lighting as the sanctuary (a holy site)

(same applies to the knight and titans btw)

like it probably looks smth like this (albeit lights out):

[theknightandhersteed]

Watching Deltarune fan theories like: Every day we stray further from God Gaster

[thecoolerhuntermaximoff]

Where DID the forest actually grow? (Deltarune discussion)

Welcome back to the Witch's Brew!

Deltarune gets closer to tomorrow every day, and there are SOME things I'd like to talk about before that day comes. For one, being this passage;

"Lost where the forest would grow, the children followed the pointed tail." If you're a scavenger of Deltarune lore and theories you'll know EXACTLY what I mean. And that's my problem. I'm not a fan of the consensus that "FRIEND led Dess and Kris to the Shelter" but overtime I've grown more neutral with the basic concept. I moreso hate the interpretation that "FRIEND was super scary and killed Dess and traumatized Kris and forced them to do evil stuff".

Because I don't think that's enough to traumatize Kris, Kris the demon-summoning "I rip my SOUL out of my body on the daily" knight who stares down eldritch abstract horrors. They eagerly and "knowingly" open the Shelter at the end of Chapter 3, so I doubt they're that afraid of what's in there.

I think if it were to be "traumatizing", it would rather be something from Kris' own hands or something a little more. . .cosmic.

So. . .what really does this passage mean, and how did it affect Kris?

Chapter 1: Who really is FRIEND?

Not a character, that's what I know. FRIEND doesn't really. . .do anything in Deltarune, the times they do show up they're more of a visual than an actual character. Like as spawns in the Pluey minigame, as dispatches in the Mantlekeeper boss fight, and a visual for Ralsei's monologue beginning Chapter 3, appearing shortly before the Dark World.

That led me to believe different things. My profound belief is that FRIEND is a symbol for freedom, pink and yellow being common colors for characters who have the potential to defy what's written (Susie, Gerson and Spamton). And they appear for some reason in the Pluey minigame, which has the FREEDOM MOTIF.

If we want to take it a few steps further, FRIEND could be the LITERAL SHADOW CRYSTAL.

Pay attention to this line. FRIEND's face approaches the camera, and fades in to a view of the Dark Worlds. . ."an alternate view of reality through the lens of shadow". A "lens of shadow" eh? Like some kind of. . .Shadow Crystal?

From how this monologue is framed it's like we're viewing the Dark Worlds THROUGH FRIEND. OK, but any other evidence?

Yeah, the definitive "IMAGE_FRIEND" only appears in Queen's basement in Chapter 2, where they actually commit to the bit of mirroring the Cheshire Cat, and smile before quickly disappearing, and Kris just moves on.

What else is LITERALLY "through the looking glass", and shortly disappears after a first glance---"for just a brief moment"? A SHADOW CRYSTAL VIEW.

And. . .that really puts into perspective this one weird line.

"For some strange reason, for just a brief moment. . .you thought you saw through your hand."

IS FRIEND KRIS' HAND???

Now, the moment of truth, is FRIEND really the "pointed tail" the passage talks about? I mean, possibly??? During the Mantle minigames, ERAM uproots images of FRIEND. Could you say it's pulling FRIEND from. . .their ROOTS???

Chapter 2: I remember you're WEIRD ROOTS

ROOTS is probably FRIEND-related what with "Digital Roots" and "BIT ROOTS" playing wherever FRIEND shows up, and y'know. . .they were literally pulled up by the roots in the ERAM boss fight. And is therefore related to the "pointed tail" passage.

But I'm not gonna lie. . .the house in between those trees looks NOTHING like the Shelter. It does resemble Kris' house, tho, which is at the north of town and therefore DIRECTLY across the Shelter.

You could say it's some kind of. . .Northernlight.

Buuuut we're not here to talk about that. Let's talk about the actual wording at play here.

The tree. Where the forest would grow. Roots. From roots, comes a tree, and from a tree, comes a forest. Therefore, roots are where the forest would grow.

Now you might be thinking "OK, now he's just saying random freaking buzzwords, he's lost his mind." No, I'm considering something. The children were lost where the forest "would" grow.

Would. Implying that the forest didn't grow. Implying that something happened to the ROOTS. There is only ONE tree, after all.

Where's the other tree? Is the tree all Kris can remember? What about the weird house?

Or perhaps. . .this never WAS the past.

Chapter 3: Charred in an Inferno of Jealousy

The field of pink and gold. So far we've agreed that the "poor children" passage is related to FRIEND and the ROOTS. With a Dark World so heavily imbued with the colours of FREEDOM (and FRIEND) and flower-themed, we'll be getting our answers FOR SURE, here.

What if the "inferno of jealousy" that scorches the field also damages the roots? Preventing the forest from growing?

It's not impossible, I mean, in ERAM's boss fight, they have fire abilities that SCORCH the arena, and pull FRIEND from the ROOTS right after! Makes you wonder if FRIEND is actually a byproduct of the pointed tail passage.

And thus, the children who follow the pointed tail would be the Fun Gang, finding the one tree in the midst of the damaged roots where the forest woulda grown. And got. . .lost?

Ok, what does that mean?

What does any of this mean? How is FRIEND---a symbol of freedom---gonna appear after the forest is incinerated? Perhaps it symbolizes the defiance of destiny that will occur once the roots are damaged? And why is it so important to Kris?!

Let's look at FRIEND again, and their relationship with Kris. We've established that FRIEND is a symbol of freedom. They might even be the essence of Shadow Crystals. But how is this relevant to Kris? Why is Kris the one who personally receives all the Egg foreshadowing?!

SPECIAL MIKE SECTION!

OH MY GOOOOOOOD

We can answer the relationship between Kris and FRIEND through their parallels with Cat Mike. The Fun Gang all parallels the Mikes; Motormouth Mike being a parallel to Ralsei, Cowboy Mike mirroring Susie, and Cat Mike mirroring Kris, and weirdly enough, FRIEND.

Cat Mike takes on the IMAGE of FRIEND, and acts like a cat the same way Kris acts like a dog. And then there's Motormouth Mike's words. . .

"Just because it's a FRIEND doesn't mean it's YOURS. Those TEETH, they BITE!!!" Could that allude to some kind of betrayal?

And then we have the OddController. The Controller meant to play the Mantle minigames, notoriously pink and yellow and meant for Kris to gain their "freedom".

What follows is Kris killing enemies and farming power in these minigames using the OddController. Including the companions that follow them.

Keep in mind, that in Deltarune, "killing" enemies registers them as "LOST". And FRIEND is the pointed tail, embodied by the OddController.

The children followed the pointed tail. . .

Lost where the forest would grow.

Chapter 4: Kris Dreemurr, the pointed tail

That's right! Kris IS FRIEND!

. . .Well, not really. But yes, I believe the Mantle minigames---which depict something happening in Chapter 5---explain the "ROOTS" passage. Once the forest can no longer grow after being scorched at the ROOTS. . .the pointed tail, Kris, will betray the children who follow them, until they become "lost".

The poor children.

Both Kris and FRIEND are very demon-themed, Kris possessing a set of demon horns and got involved in the demon-summoning trade with Catti, and FRIEND is the opposite to the divine white dog as the black cat, and could be described as "the tail of hell".

This could probably also describe something that happened with Dess and Kris (and maybe even our good buddy ASRIEL), but from what we know, Kris was directly involved.

This theory could've been a simple rebuttal of the consensus that "FRIEND killed Dess and traumatized poor Kris" because it's just such a horrorbait, uninteresting idea. But I really wanted to gauge what it actually means based on the information I gathered myself, and I think this is a pretty solid if not far-fetched interpretation.

Oh, and I can't forget that according to the Organikks, the pointed tail passage was heard in-between, and for some reason, jumbled up.

And remember what Gerson said;

In between. Whatever that passage was, it, too, was in between and therefore defying the Prophecy. That defiance leads to freedom, and from that scorched earth, freedom is personified in the form of spectres. . .FRIENDs. . .all pointed tails of hell just like Kris.

This is a bit of a reach, but to me, it's the best possibility. Now, this could just as easily refer to Dess. Maybe it refers to MULTIPLE events at different intervals. If the general consensus is true, that something in the Shelter (not FRIEND specifically) took Dess and changed Kris forever, I'm sure Toby will execute it tastefully.

Maybe the reason "Kris can't wash it all away" is because of some kind of guilt. If Kris really did come across a demon on that day, then perhaps they may have sold their original SOUL, and that tainted them and their hands. . .forever.

But either way, we will find out in 11 days. Because whether 11 hours or 11 days, Deltarune will be waiting.