(Deltarune Chapter 5 Spoilers, Including Most Recent Patch & The Weird Route)
Okay, so the new Pink('s body) dialog in the Chapter 5 patch dropped a huge lore bomb, connecting the Forgotten Man's Eggs to the FRIEND and shining light on the FRIEND's nature: there's apparently a whole pack of these little shits, people have been going into Witness Protection to escape them, they like protein, I guess? and they have a master of some kind.
My off-the-cuff guess for this "cat master" role is ERAM, famous member of the Kris Fan Club and Kris Hate Club, and known summoner of cats, but I've seen some people point to Gaster as the potential culprit.
I don't think so, and not just because I think Gaster is (mostly) a good guy.
M A R K S
The selection of obtainable trophies in the Playstation versions of Deltarune has been an odd source of Gaster lore, due to the trophy descriptions being written in his cadence and him commenting with curiosity about how much of a freak you are if you manage to dodge obtaining any.
The biggest thing we learned about Gaster from these things is his opinion on the Eggs: Apparently, they're an "ISSUE". Of all the things we can do that Gaster could take "ISSUE" with, collecting some Eggs is where he draws the line.
Beyond it's implications for the Forgotten Man's identity, nobody really knew what to make of this. But now, we have a potential explanation: collecting these eggs and carrying them on Kris's person is risking drawing the attention of some very scary cats that bite very hard.
After all, Kris is "SOMEONE VERY, VERY, WONDERFUL" to Gaster. While it's unclear exactly how, the good doctor does seem to care for Kris, so risking them coming to harm by the paws of a FRIEND would make sense to be an "ISSUE" for him.
Something Weird About This, Though
That said, there is still the glaring fact that Gaster apparently has no such problems with the Weird Route. You know, the one where we throw two of his blorbos into a lake.
I can think of two three possible explanations for this discrepancy:
First explanation: Gaster's moral compass could be on a funny axis, and he actually buys into all the "getting stronger" stuff in the Weird Route. He never seems to object to our use of violence, encouraging us to persist in the Violence-only Knight battle and to "augment our power" in one of the aforementioned trophies.
Actually... that trophy specifies "in Chapter 2", so you'd naturally get it if you...
...Okay, second explanation: Is the Weird Route part of Gaster's plan!? This was a possibility I was going to float for DEVILRUNE THEORY, but I didn't have any actual evidence for it, besides ch5_inversion_lake_chant apparently being made from the Wonderful motif part of Festival, and that's anecdotal at best. Now, though... I don't know, there might actually be something there... I'll come back to this some other time...
And now, the second third, scarier explanation: The FRIENDs are so dangerous that the entire Weird Route doesn't even register as a threat by comparison. This could tie into the second explanation, but could also play on it's own, and would imply the FRIENDs and their master are powerful, dangerous and terrifying enough to strike fear into what is essentially a god.
And considering a lot of people already think FRIEND has the Tail of Hell... he might be right to be afraid.
