Weird Route and Forgotten Man/Egg Rooms connections (Updated!)
So i've been musing on this for quite a bit now, and the more i think of it the more i can't unsee the connections between the weird route and all the forgotten man stuff with the egg rooms. Consider:
They both involve isolating Kris from the fun gang (Kris with Noelle in the weird route, Kris on their own in the egg rooms). This is most noteworthy in ch4, where you have to literally run the other direction susie is going to get to the stained glass room (and thus the ROOTS and therapy rooms) from the second sanctuary.
You need to get to the dog dumpster to continue their respective routes (you need to get in here and back out for chapter 2's egg roo, and spamton hides out here in the weird route and you need to get to him to get the thorn ring.) Also note the graffiti of the scarlet trees the forgotten man hides behind is right next to the dumpster spamton hides in.
The ARG alludes to and hints at both of them (referencing Ice Palace from the mantle minigames of board 2, among other things, and the webpage with a punch of stained-glass windows hinting at how to get to the ch4 egg room).
FRIEND connections to both (mantle minigame for weird route, and its theorized that the special egg Noelle gets in /egg/, that it itself is theorized will hatch into FRIEND if we take into account /rain/, is from the forgotten man, as you get to that page from a web page featuring the familiar scarlet tree, /man',, not to mention its likely FRIEND is tied to whatever trauma Kris is repressing as represented by said egg rooms due to the whole "lost where the forest would grow, the children followed the pointed tail" from the roots room. Also Cats from Cat Petters hatches from eggs).
The Phrase "Aren't you forgetting something" appears in regards to you not getting the previous board's key in the mantle minigames (the full phrase is "aren't you forgetting something importent?"), as well as thrice in the spamton sweepstakes (/d_a_m_n_y_o_u_t_e_n_n_a/, /windows/, and /window/) as text you see on the tab, one of which is a reference to the sword route again (and even leads to /icepalace_glaceir/) while the other two are hints at how to get the chapter 4 ROOTS room (which is how you get the chapter's egg).
CH3 has a guide, or at least something to hint at, both the weird route and the egg rooms (mantle minigames for the former, the forgotten man's schedule for the latter).
They push, but not force, you to go down either a pacifist or violent playstyle (Weird route I don't need to really explain, snowgrave go brrr, and you're locked out of the chapter's egg room if you go down it, and you're locked out of the Nowhere if you fought the Ribbicks earlier in the chapter).
The way to go down them is both hidden and obtuse, often requiring a guide to go down them (Egg route gets it worse than WR, but the latter is still difficult to go down without a guide on hand).
It's also noteworthy that Miss Mizzle refers to love as being made of eggshells, which is interesting to note in the context of LOVE (Levels Of ViolencE) and its ties to one of the prophecy panels in chapter 4 "LOVE FINDS ITS WAY TO THE GIRL". A Rudinn also brings up that Castle Town's LOVE is cracked if you didn't recruit anyone from chapter 3. The philosophers also state that the answer is LOVE, seemingly to the questions that they speaking about, which also feels relevant.
On a thematic level, both the eggs and the weird route as a whole seem tied to the concept of video game secrets, more specificity glitches and exploits (the weird route is very much a creepypasta-esque twisting of the game tied to a character who has a habit of finding secrets in video games, and to get the eggs you literally needs to go to the deltarune equivalent of the backrooms to get them). Its also notable people have compared the eggs from the eggman to the error handler glitches such as bad egg.
Unlike the Shadow Crystals which can be progressed retroactively (i.e., if you played save file 1 up to chapter 4 and got the chapter 2 and 4 crystals, you can go back into chapter 1 and 3 and get their shadow crystals so you can find them in the hole in the wall in castle town), the Weird Route and the Eggs can only be progressed Linearly (i.e. you can play the game up to chapter 3 on save file one, replay chapter 2 for the weird route, and then continue to chapter 4 and now its the weird route now, same for the eggs, in that you can't collect them retroactively).
What does all of this potentially mean. Well i have an idea for awhile now that the Forgotten man and collecting his eggs are key to their own "route" alongside the Weird Route (possibly the "good ending" counterpart to the Weird Route, ala pacifist to genocide). After all, if the PlayStation achievements are to go by, Gaster sees the Eggs as an issue (how or why is not truly relevant here, if i have to quess its completely outside of the knowledge of the prophecy unlike the weird route which, if we use the mantle minigames as a base, is a "forbidden path" or is the original, intended prophecy itself), so clearly they are not too unimportant. But what makes them not too important?
My first though as far as the "not too important" half of the egg's description is that the eggs themselves aren't the important part of the egg route. They essentially a glorified progress counter and nothing else and when you get all five the forgotten man will pop into the plot and do something.
However the Dog Dumpster being a key room for both the Egg Route and Weird Route makes me think back on the Thorn Ring and how it can be made into the Twisted Sword. You see currently the actual purpose of the currently unused Pure Crystal, likely the reward we get from Seam (or whatever other cat in the area) when we get all the Shadow Crystals. The only currently know use for it as an item you combine with the Thorn Ring to create the Twisted Sword.
So what if, instead of the Pure Crystal having a different use than being needed for the Twisted Sword, what if there was a different way to get the Thorn Ring. We Know that from the Forgotten Man's schedule that he will "harvest the wheat" in sunday, Flower King is a very likely (if not a lock) for at least one of the dark worlds, and datamined responses from noelle to the various items in chapters 3 and 4 implies noelle might be a playable party member in chapter 5. So the circumstances are aligning in a way for the reward to getting the Thron Ring via the Egg Route are there.
It even makes sense from the description of the eggs themselves. They aren't too importent, as there a more immediate and generally less convoluted way to get the thorn ring (by going down the weird route for at least most of chapter 2), but not too unimportent as you not only get critical lore, but also don't have to sacrifice any recruits to get it.
