something bad is going to happen to ralsei i can feel it in my bones
insaneposting rn but i do have an actual analysis
first of all: the game seems to be setting up focus on ralsei.
chapter 2 had a story focus on noelle, chapter 3 had a story focus on kris (their past at the very least), and chapter 4 had a story focus on susie. following this, a more ralsei-centric storyline, (while i definitely don't believe thats ALL the chapter is considering the festival and asgore) seems possible.
chapters 3-4 have moments that focus on ralsei's struggles with his own reality, which could come to a head during chapter 5. the ch3 darkness explanation, the conversation about the festival after board 2, his room, both of the susie-ralsei moments in ch4, all of these show the growing pressure on ralsei about his role as a darkner and his relationship with being real, which could likely become worse due to all his friends going to the festival while he's stuck in the dark.
also, in addition to the questioning about his purpose as a darkner, his purpose in the party is being taken over. susie's heals can preform better than heal prayer if given the right armor and noelle, who will likely show up at least in castle town if not the dark world, can use sleep mist. there's a strong possibility he could become jealous over susie's magic and given his nature, i think he'd hate himself for those feelings, driving him deeper into this unstable emotional state we saw before.
second: the flowers
toby fox has said before he doesn't want to hide crucial story elements in the merch, but i do think his wording was intentionally odd here.
on fangamer, there's a t-shirt of ralsei surrounded by different flowers. its a beautiful design but feels kinda out-of-left-field since we haven't really seen flower motifs with ralsei so far. there are TONS of ralsei t-shirt designs they could've gone with, so the flowers are a bit weird. (side note i'm not bashing the shirt i think its cool asl, it's just important for the analysis to know this)
well, in his tweet announcing the shirt, toby said "Ralsei shirt!!! He's always getting mixed up with flowers, isn't he ... (that hasn't happened)" this feels intentionally odd to say, especially drawing attention to the fact this hasn't happened yet. so because of this, i believe some sort of relationship between ralsei and flowers, or maybe him being attacked/affected by them at some point, is likely. the next dark world has a very strong emphasis on flowers, so it's not ridiculous to say we might see this in chapter 5
third: The Evil And Intimidating Golden Flower
he also has a strange amount of similarities/foils with flowey.
he's vaguely asriel coded with his name and appearance, specifically asriel from undertale, he's the tutorial character (his lines in the mannequin fight are almost exactly flowey's in some places), he's unlike any lightners or darkners we've met like how flowey is neither human nor monster, and he knows more than he should about the player.
his beliefs are the direct foil to floweys. he believes in being kind no matter what and, like "kill or be killed", he's shown that there are flaws to this and the true way to go about things is somewhere inbetween the extremes. he, prior to ch4, believes the future is unchanging whereas flowey believes in changing things as much as he can, first himself then through encouraging frisk towards different routes. he sees the good in everyone and flowey sees the evil.
i don't know if flowey is actually going to show up, i doubt it'll be exactly him, but if someone flowey-esque shows up ralsei could be a very interesting foil to them.
so considering all of this it's very likely there will be some sort of story focus on ralsei in chap 5, and given the tone the story's been taking lately, im TERRIFIED for him.
