So, I just watched both Game Theory’s video on Deltarune AND Treesicle’s video on Deltarune.
Both videos posit that the Dark World is largely a fictional one invented by either Kris specifically, or people in the real world who invented games such as cards, chess, checkers, etc.
Basically, the “dark world” is the spare classroom itself with the lights turned off.
HOWEVER-- the Dark World very much IS real, if only on a separate plane within Deltarune. I mean, think about it:
When you leave the Dark World, Susie expresses confusion over what just happened, as if she and Kris stepped out of another world and NOT just stopped playing a game of pretend.
If you find the unseen man behind the tree in the Dark World, he gives you an egg. After exiting the Dark World, the egg will still be with you, and you can choose to put it in Asgore’s fridge... where it becomes TWO eggs.
Seam’s explanation about Jevil’s insanity indicates that W.D. Gaster’s knowledge that the world is just a game is what caused Jevil to break in the first place. Considering we know that Sans has a close tie to Gaster, and Sans lives in Kris’ town (the Light world), then how did Gaster access the Dark World if it was only an invention of Kris’?
To say that the Dark World isn’t real and that it’s all just symbolism for Kris’ rich inner life (or something like that) is a dismissal that something huge is happening. Deltarune is a game, but it is an entire world that exists. The Dark World is a game world, too, and clearly it does exist enough that it can interact with the rest of Deltarune’s universe.
W.D. Gaster seems to understand that the universe is a game, and that all games exist in their own levels of reality. It is through his understanding of game realities that he is able to not only travel from one reality to the next with ease, but manipulate those realities as well.
This does beg an obvious question, though-- what even IS Gaster? What reality is he from? Undertale’s? Deltarune’s? Is he a Darkner? Or is he something else entirely? Hell, what even ARE Sans and Papyrus? Are they of a totally different reality as well? I don’t see other monsters or Darkners that speak in unique fonts...
