Final Prophecy Thoughts
Sooo, I'm gonna go ahead and go into a long post on some of my thoughts about Deltarune's final prophecy. While I know it's a bit of a losing battle trying to guess what the final prophecy says, since the game wants us to focus on other things, I think I've gotten my thoughts coalesced enough to make my own guess.
Also, I'm positive that this is not a new idea at all, and this is probably an opinion shared by quite a lot of folks. I just wanted to get down my own thoughts and reasonings for them, and then see how that compares to whatever we get in canon!
Before getting to that, I think there's one statement that needs reinforcing for that:
Yes, Susie IS the second hero of the prophecy
I know there's debate about whether Susie is supposed to be the second hero in the prophecy, and having thought on it, I’m quite certain that that is supposed to be the case. I think there might be some confusion regarding the prophecy lines regarding all the heroes. We hear them in this order:
THE THIRD HERO. THE PRINCE, ALONE IN DEEPEST DARK THE FIRST HERO. THE CAGE, WITH HUMAN SOUL AND PARTS! AND LAST, WAS THE GIRL. AT LAST, WAS THE GIRL. THE SECOND HERO. THE GIRL, WITH HOPE CROSSED ON HER HEART.
And the idea there seems to be that Susie is not the second hero, because she's "at last, was the girl," with the rude buster symbolizing her, and the actual silhouette of the second hero...not doing so? The silhouette clearly reads more like Susie than it does Noelle, though. It doesn't make sense for there to be a second girl that is mentioned in all of one line, removed from any other context, and then not brought up in the prophecy again. I think some people think these lines are out of order, and it's supposed to be read like this:
THE FIRST HERO. THE CAGE, WITH HUMAN SOUL AND PARTS! THE SECOND HERO. THE GIRL, WITH HOPE CROSSED ON HER HEART. THE THIRD HERO. THE PRINCE, ALONE IN DEEPEST DARK AND LAST, WAS THE GIRL. AT LAST, WAS THE GIRL.
But this rearranging breaks the rhyme scheme and meter that the prophecy works with. Try reading both versions aloud, and you'll see which version actually sounds correct: the first one.
So, why is it written with the heroes "out of order?" Because it's describing the order in which the heroes join the party. Ralsei, the third hero, is first because he's the one that actually starts the heroes on their quest. Kris, the first hero, joins immediately after. And Susie, the second hero, joins last. What's more, there's a significant gap of time between when Ralsei starts the quest and when she joins the party "for real," since she does so towards the end of chapter one. She's both last, and "at last."
In that case, why is Kris listed as first, Susie second, and Ralsei third? Simple: because that's the order that they're actually questing in:
Regardless of whatever intent might have been there (and I DO think there could have been a deliberate effort to put Susie in place of Noelle, for reasons that will become clear later), Susie was in the right place and time to become the second hero, therefore she is the second hero, and the prophecy then reflects that she always was.
Why is it so important that Susie is the second hero? Because I think the final prophecy says something along the lines of the girl needing to hurt or kill the cage and take their soul. I won't try and come up with an actual rhyme scheme for it since we don't know how many lines there were in the final prophecy, but I think that's the idea that was conveyed.
Again, not a shocking or groundbreaking guess; lots of people are probably on that page too. Here's my thoughts on why that's my current guess for it:
1) Susie is a critical component to the final prophecy
In the second sanctuary, when Susie is chasing down prophecies about "the girl," she asks out loud if there’s anything more the prophecy has to say about her. In response to that, the sanctuary starts to show the final prophecy.
It’s stopped when the Sound of Justice breaks it, but it does seem like the prophecy starting up the final tragedy is a direct response to Susie's request.
This is backed up more in the first sanctuary, when Susie asks Ralsei if she says or does anything else cool. Ralsei looks nervous and refuses to answer, and we're again interrupted.
The primary person that Ralsei does not want to see the final prophecy is Susie; pretty much all of his running around the dark world is to make sure that she, specifically, doesn't see the ending.
2) The final prophecy involves some kind of violence that must happen
When Ralsei is distraught over the final tragedy being unchanged, he mentions that he had hoped that if they were just kind to everyone, if they avoided violence, then the final prophecy would change. It makes the most sense for Ralsei to believe avoiding violence would change the prophecy if the final tragedy involved a great violence.
What's interesting is that, even in his wishes for the party to be peaceful and kind, he’s still most concerned with Susie's violence. If the player chooses to have Kris fight enemies rather than recruit them, Ralsei doesn't have that much to say, ultimately letting Kris call the shots there. Where he seems to get really worried and actually speak up in protest is when Susie is the one being violent towards enemies. Which means...
3) That violence is instigated by Susie, not enacted on her
There's the chance there that Susie is the one that's supposed to die, rather than Kris, but I do think signs point more towards Kris being killed by Susie. Aside from moments where things are going "off the rails" (such as anything associated with the weird route) the things that seem to bring out the most anxiety in Ralsei are when Susie is angry or Kris is hurt.
- The moment in chapter three when Susie switches controllers and says "Kris, why'd you make me do that?" has Ralsei immediately turn around and look towards the player, as if he's expecting the player to have taken control of Susie. He jumps to this thought even before the more obvious explanation of switched controllers, considering they're playing a video game.
- The moment in chapter four when Kris and Susie crash through the prophecy glass, Kris starts bleeding, and Susie attempts to heal them gets a surprisingly strong reaction from Ralsei. He all but pushes Susie out of the way so that he can heal Kris himself. Something about seeing Kris injured with only Susie nearby has got him very on edge.
- When talking about the festival, no matter who you say Kris is bringing to the festival, Ralsei brings up Susie in some capacity. The weird route certainly has him anxious, but even in the normal route, there's an undercurrent in his responses of "make sure that Susie stays happy at the festival." There seems to be some major inciting incident that Ralsei is anxious about, and Susie's happiness is contingent upon it.
Ralsei genuinely believes that Susie is kind and full of hope, but he's carrying a great fear that something will happen that provokes anger and violence from her. And well...considering the double-cross happening with Kris, we already have a hint of what that might be! Speaking of...
4) Kris seems already resigned to violence, or even death
This is a bit more nebulous, since we still don't know for sure Kris's motivations and history that's brought them to this point. However, based on what we do know, I don't think it's a stretch to assume that Kris is trapped in a self-destructive spiral. They do seem to already know most of the prophecy. They seem to have entered into this arrangement with the Knight conspiracy while carrying a lot of guilt. With how they treat the soul and their own body, they already show signs of self-harm.
They're completely unbothered by Susie bullying them or even threatening them with a gruesome death...almost as if they know that this was always going to be the way things worked out.
And of course, there's this joke, said if you choose "PERISH" when Queen gives her little ultimatum:
The clearest reason for the prophecy even demanding that Susie must kill Kris in order to save the world would be for her to take the soul and use it, since that's the defining feature of Kris as the first hero to begin with. How she'd get the soul is its own separate post for later, but regardless, I think that's the intent behind it.
With all that in mind, if that is the final prophecy, then Susie's reaction to seeing it all makes sense.
Keep in mind, she was only just saying how excited she was to be picked as a hero by the prophecy. She's never been picked for anything good or important before; she's just inherently bad. Finally, there's words out there that say she has hope, that she can save the world...only for that prophecy to then turn around and go:
No. You were always intended to enact violence. You are doomed to hurt the people you care about most.
No wonder she reacts with anger and fear! No wonder she tries so hard to brush it off. No, she's not inherently bad, she's changed! She wouldn’t do that to her friend; Kris wouldn't just take it; and of course Ralsei, who abhors violence, wouldn't let that come to pass. Clearly, they just have to make sure that that doesn't happen.
It also explains her lines as they are leaving the dark world: that she wants to make sure that, no matter what, they can still keep being friends tomorrow. If they both saw a prophecy that said she is doomed to kill her friend, well...of course she'd be really anxious that it would negatively affect their friendship.
Maybe, if she hopes hard enough, they can stay friends even when fate itself says otherwise.
