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runepixel · 9 days ago

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Analyzing FRIEND: Who Are They? - A DELTARUNE Theory

(MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR DELTARUNE CHAPTERS 3&4)

Some forewarnings:

I’m not particularly good at theorizing, so I expect this to have holes in it and probably be incorrect. But I think it would be good to get my ideas out there. Please be kind. I’m open to constructive criticism and corrections.

The angle this theory looks at DELTARUNE from largely follows Mollystars’ Device Theory and the idea that Dess is the Roaring Knight. I recommend checking out Mollystars’ Device Theory as, although it was released in a post-DELTARUNE Chapters 1&2 and pre-DELTARUNE Chapters 3&4 world, it still holds up relatively well. That said, I do have my own personal thoughts that somewhat deviate from the Device Theory.

Also, after I finished writing this, GuiltyFlygon released a video that somewhat falls in line with what I’m trying to get across here. It goes over not just FRIEND, but also the theme of fear in DELTARUNE, how it connects to the Knight, and NIGHTMARE/ERAM/the Shadow Mantle boss, whatever you call them. Check it out if you’re interested, it’s really good!

Without further ado, let’s get into it.

In the wake of DELTARUNE Chapters 3&4, expectations have been simultaneously shattered and surpassed. The things we thought to be patterns, such as different Lightners joining Kris and Susie in the Dark World each Chapter, the secret bosses being morally dubious at best and morally reprehensible at worst shorter-than-average height men who have been dealt a bad hand and have since gone insane, even the Weird Route progressing in the way of using another Lightner to go off the beaten path (although this one was more unlikely), all of these things were shattered. Even the parts we thought would be late-game, like the appearance of the Roaring Knight, the Titans, hell, Susie finding out the truth about Darkners and Dark Worlds — all of them happened just in these two Chapters alone. And all things considered, in hindsight, it makes sense that these things were given to us now rather than later.

DELTARUNE is about so much more than what we thought before. And that’s not to dunk on what we previously expected — we really just didn’t know a lot about the game’s future, and that isn’t a bad thing. Even now, we still don’t really know what to expect — there’s plenty of hints, plenty of new things to speculate, but only the man himself, Toby Fox, really knows what’s in store. Really, it makes sense all of these things are revealed to us now; the game is in its halfway point now, with only three (or four) Chapters left. It’s a grand story, rife with symbolism, themes, important messages, allegories, metaphors, and secrets.

Secrets, especially, are one of the things people most love about DELTARUNE. Just look at the secret bosses. Not only that, but the Egg Rooms, the UNUSED text in the code, the Weird Route, the Sword Route, every little thing that needs to have you go out of your way to find it. The game rewards you for uncovering these secrets, too. Every time a new Chapter comes out, I find myself enthralled by all the things people discover, the things I myself discover. There’s just so much in this game that is waiting to be found. Of course, many secrets that led to questions after Chapter 2, now that Chapters 3&4 have been released, have only been answered with more questions. That makes sense; for all the hints we’ve gotten, there’s still no concrete answers, the likes of which may well be saved for later Chapters.

But one thing that’s stuck out to me, and continues to do so, is FRIEND.

They are an entity known in the files as either IMAGE_FRIEND or DEVICE_FRIEND, referring to their sprite and themselves as an object respectively. Their filename follows the same naming convention found in the files reserved largely for the GONERMAKER sequence at the beginning of Chapter 1, which, due to the nature of the GONERMAKER and the Voice accompanying it, can connect them to Gaster. FRIEND, however, is the only entity following this naming convention who makes an appearance in the game. Not the game as in the GONERMAKER sequence, but the game as in the Dark Worlds. They’ve made at least one appearance each Chapter, save for Chapter 1, and normally, they can always be seen in an out-of-bounds area.

In Chapter 2, FRIEND can be seen briefly if you walk back to the far side of the far left room in the basement of Queen’s mansion, after you trigger the door to close. They are a pair of heterochromatic eyes, one pink and one yellow, with a large grin. They can only be visible for a split second before fading into the darkness.

In Chapter 3, FRIEND appears in the cutscene where Ralsei explains Dark Worlds to Susie as what seems to be the Dark World equivalent of a chair. They take on a body that resembles that of UNDERTALE’s Endogeny, an Amalgamate from the True Lab, and they laugh before lunging at the viewer.

Additionally, in the S-rank room, the vending machine has a ��SMILE” option which costs you 1 point. This alludes to FRIEND, because in the Japanese localization, “SMILE” is written in Katakana, further associating FRIEND with Gaster, whose dialogues use a mix of Kanji and Katakana, an unusual writing style not used by other characters.

It’s also possible to view FRIEND on the Sword Route, the first time being if you cut down the trees to both the left and right of the pyramid entrance, a secret room on each side will appear. In the room on the left, stepping on a certain tile will briefly show FRIEND’s eyes with a laugh sound, and in the room on the right, doing the same will show their grin with a laugh sound as well.

The second time, during the battle against NIGHTMARE (the Shadow Mantle Holder — listen, I know people call them ERAM or John Mantle but they’re literally called NIGHTMARE in the files so I’m calling them that and you can’t stop me, Pluey isn’t Cat Mike’s name guys it’s the name of the minigame okay his name is Cat Mike please stop this /lh), they summon many FRIENDs to attack Kris from the Second Phase onwards. These FRIENDs are depicted as cats, and leave behind a laughing grin briefly when defeated, as well as having a chance of dropping a healing candy.

Lastly, in Chapter 4, FRIEND appears in the 3rd Sanctuary in the dark room containing a Waferguard, hidden behind a wall and disappearing after being seen. Interestingly, their sprite is completely black here, only visible when silhouetted against the sound waves of the bell in the previous room.

They also have a chance of appearing in the Battat minigame in the Mike room when a LEVEL 40 or higher gold cat collides with a meteor.

For a long time, prior to Chapters 3&4, FRIEND was thought to be Mike, seeing as both have connections to Spamton. Spamton’s glasses match the same color as FRIEND’s eyes, and at the time, Mike was a figure Spamton had been shown to hold respect for. Many speculations about FRIEND were made in relation to Spamton. But, when it comes to the identity of Mike, well… we know how that went down now.

But it’s interesting, isn’t it? Not just that the identity of “Mike” canonically has been shared among three people pretending to be him, with their designs being tributes to fan designs over the years, but that even in one of the Mike minigames, Battat, FRIEND still makes an appearance. And what we know about FRIEND’s actual appearance, well, we only know for certain that they have pink and yellow eyes and a big grin. They can take on the form of a cat head, or the form of a suspiciously Endogeny-looking creature. Otherwise, they’re essentially a disembodied pair of eyes and a mouth. It’s curious. Their appearance in Battat is almost mocking; as if to say, “You can try all you want to pin me down and figure me out, but you’ll always fail. I’ll never give you the satisfaction you crave, you’ll always be wanting more.”

… Unfortunately, I like weird cat-like things. So I went down a rabbithole of trying to figure out just what and who FRIEND is, what they serve to the wider narrative of DELTARUNE, and why. And I can’t say I’ve found the real answer, but… what I have managed to piece together, is something I find quite interesting.

So, let’s start with the basics:

FRIEND and RNG

One of the things most consistent about FRIEND so far has been their connection to RNG in DELTARUNE. I touched on it briefly when listing their in-game appearances, but in the Battat minigame, FRIEND has a chance of appearing if your gold cat’s LEVEL is 40 or higher and they collide with a meteor, with the chance increasing the higher the LEVEL of your gold cat. Not only that, but touching FRIEND can award you a random amount of points, ranging between -50,000 to 300,000. They also bring down your FUEL to 20%, unless you’re already at 20% FUEL or less, in which case they bring it down to 1%.

In Chapter 3, on the Sword Route, I mentioned how in the battle against NIGHTMARE, they’ll summon many FRIENDs. The FRIENDs in this fight also have their own RNG, specifically with regards to dropping healing candies. If Kris has never died to NIGHTMARE, no candies will be dropped. If a candy has already been dropped in Phase 2, no more candy will be dropped, unless Kris has died at least 7 times to NIGHTMARE. In that case, the chance for a healing candy to drop is 50% if Kris has less than ¼ of their HP, 30% if they have less than ⅔ of their HP, and 5% otherwise. Kris’ HP is checked when a FRIEND dies. An additional 2% is added for each time Kris dies to NIGHTMARE, capping out at an 80% chance.

There’s also the fact that in Chapter 2, one of the removed attacks that was meant to be used in the first battle against Berdly, featured barriers that would appear. And there was an alternate barricade sprite with FRIEND’s face on it. This barricade would’ve had a very low chance, at 0.5%, of appearing, had the attack not been cut.

So, from what it looks like in-game, FRIEND seems very connected to the concept of RNG. Perhaps more abstractly is how this connects them to Spamton. Spamton is someone who started out very unlucky, with his products never really going anywhere. But this changed when he received a phone call — the Addisons claiming he found someone, or was maybe found by someone — from a mysterious figure. Suddenly, Spamton became the luckiest man alive, bringing him success and fortune as every costumer came his way. He had become a “BIG SHOT”, even earning the attention of Tenna, who planned to put him on TV and make him a star. But just when Tenna finally had the chance to learn of Spamton’s secret to making it big, something Tenna wanted for himself as an aging TV, the person responsible for Spamton’s success mysteriously vanished. This sent all of Spamton’s success and fortune crashing down. He became unlucky again. Not long after that, he received a phone call that could only be described as “nothing but garbage noise”.

So far, from this, it seems that the person responsible for Spamton’s sudden luck was FRIEND. After all, the element of Spamton NEO’s bullets is even “Puppet/Cat”. Additionally, cats are often a symbol of luck, with the “Lucky Cat” in particular being seen as the Maneki-Neko or “Beckoning Cat”. Such a cat is believed to bring good luck to shopkeepers and businesspeople by “beckoning” customers. It even relates to an old folktale where a shopkeeper befriended and took care of a cat despite being poor and unsuccessful. In exchange for his kindness, the cat granted him the luck to have customers come and buy his products.

Spamton and FRIEND’s relationship, if true, could very well be a reference to that folktale, or the Maneki-Neko at least. Spamton’s glasses, which mimic FRIEND’s eye colors, are even a sort of good luck charm, seeing how they greatly increase the money you gain from battles when equipped.

Alright, now this is all well and good for in-game connections FRIEND has to RNG. But, what about outside of the game? To be fair, Toby did say that he only really considers things inside the game itself to be canon. But we can still look to things outside of it as possible hints or foreshadowing. For example: the Spamton Sweepstakes, including especially Noelle’s blog posts. Yep. That’s right. You can’t talk about DELTARUNE secrets without the deer girl who has a knack for finding secrets in video games being mentioned at least once. It’s morally obligatory.

FRIEND and Noelle

When the Spamton Sweepstakes came out, various secret webpages were added, initially totaling to 26 pages. It wasn’t an ARG, but each page functioned basically as either Easter Eggs, teasers, or both. A series of pages were made to represent a glitch-hunting blog Noelle runs, and while all of these were interesting, a select few are relevant to FRIEND.

One such post that we’ll start with is /catpetterz/. This could be accessed via clicking a link found in the description of the “‘FUR - THENTIC’ CARDBOARD BOX” item on the main Sweepstakes page. In this post, Noelle talks about the complexity of Cat Petterz’ animation and breeding system, and how players have been able to mod the game to create brand new pets. However, she notes, not all mods are compatible with each other, as when pets fall in love, an egg appears and hatches into a pet that combines the animation and visual data of the two parents. This can result in strange combinations or in a message saying “Incompatible pet,” which causes the game to freeze and its music to glitch out. Noelle says that it scared her so much as a kid that she would punish her pets if they ever fell in love, and she would throw any egg in the trash if one ever appeared. But this all would change, and this blog post links to another one called /egg/.

In the /egg/ post, Noelle talks about how if a player has no pets, there’s a rare chance for an egg to appear that gives a random pet; this is one of the only ways to get some of the secret cats in the game. But one day when Noelle was trying to get the ultimate cat, a white egg appeared on her screen with the message “SPECIAL.” The egg never hatched, and she worried it could be a glitch, so she decided to try and get rid of it, but she couldn’t move or get rid of the egg. Trying to click it only resulted in it making a “weird sound.” She even tried to uninstall and reinstall the game, but the egg was still there. She now thinks that it might have been the result of having so many mods installed that the pet “didn’t know what to hatch into,” but at the time thought her computer was haunted. After awhile, she treated the egg like any other, taking care of it, even logging off that day thinking it was a cool pet and that she could maybe upload it as a mod somewhere. But the next day when she opened the game, the egg was gone, with a message that said it “left home due to happiness.” Normally the message is “(pet) left home due to sadness” as a result of being neglected rather that being nice to it. Noelle also mentions how the egg had a name but she doesn’t remember what it was.

For a long while, these posts were all we had. But less than a month prior to the release of Chapters 3&4, Tony pulled a Trick and added a whopping 14 more pages. On Noelle’s /egg/ blog post, now, was a link to another post called /rain/.

Noelle talks about rain days in this post, in which her mom even cancelled school one day because of it so Noelle wouldn’t have to walk to school in the rain. She played Cat Petterz on these days, specifically the minigames you can play with your cats, mentioning how they have “super sillyriffic” names like JONGLER. One of the minigames Noelle especially liked, she couldn’t remember the name, but she described it as like an endless cave where you could collect cats that could raise your score depending on their rarity. The chances and their rarities followed like this:

80%---normal

15%---blue ora

4%---rock & roll

0%---ANGLE WING!!!!

00000%-----------SUPER HOLY ANGlE WING!!!!

However, Noelle says in the post that she feels like there were more, as she recalls getting a cat that actually LOWERED how many points she had, and she died immediately in the game. She says that it seems no one else has seen this, but suspects someone she knows has, but wouldn’t give a straight answer if asked anyway. She also adds that the creators of Cat Petterz made another game called Cat Petterz The RPG which includes the minigames, but Noelle says that the game is “kind of a ripoff of Dragon Blazers.” She then suggests that if anyone can find proof, that they try it out themselves, with her text containing a link to the /rarecats/ page.

The /rarecats/ page was essentially a webpage version of Battat. As we can tell now, having experienced Chapters 3&4, Noelle’s blog posts /catpetterz/, /egg/, and /rain/ were all references to FRIEND and the Mike minigames. She even mentioned one of the minigames by name, Jongler, and described Battat perfectly. It’s also worth noting that the /rain/ post is likely a Pluey reference, as the Pluey minigame involves rescuing cats and placing them in an “ark” while it rains. The name “Pluey” is even a reference to the French word “pluie,” which means rain.

The implications of /catpetterz/ and /egg/ are especially interesting, as it suggests that Noelle may have essentially “hatched” FRIEND. I think something I also haven’t seen anyone mention is how Noelle notes that in hindsight, she probably thinks what happened was she had so many mods installed that the egg — or FRIEND — didn’t know what to hatch into. Considering FRIEND’s in-game appearance, which, while largely correspondent with cats, still remains ambiguous especially due to the Endogeny resemblance in the Chapter 3 Dark World explanation cutscene, this would make sense. It could even imply that FRIEND’s physical form is capable of shifting in some way, because it contains so much “potential” on what it could be.

Which brings me to my next point.

FRIEND and Eggs/the Forgotten Man

The idea that Noelle “hatched” FRIEND from an egg that simply came with the message “SPECIAL” attached should sound alarm bells in your head. Especially because Noelle specifically states that she gets the feeling that if anyone else were to know about such an egg, it’d be someone she knows wouldn’t give a straight answer. It’s not entirely clear who this is talking about, but given how Noelle seems to distinguish this friend from the other friend in the same post — who is clearly Catti — this friend is likely Kris or Berdly. And to be honest, I’m not even going to spend time considering whether Berdly knows of FRIEND or not, because Kris is right there and I’ll get to them later. For now let’s just agree that it’s Kris she’s talking about.

Anyway, something I purposefully left out was that /egg/ can not only be accessed via /catpetterz/, but by a webpage that has to purposefully be found on its own. This webpage is /man/. It’s a webpage with a black screen and the tree found in the Egg Rooms in the middle. The tab title is “* (Behind the tree.)”, and there’s not much that can be interacted with on this page. In fact, there’s nothing. Except… if you click near at the top of the tree, near the middle, slightly to the left, you are taken to the webpage for the /egg/ blog post.

This is weird, right? It implies that the Forgotten Man and FRIEND are somewhat connected. That in some way, the Forgotten Man gave an egg to Noelle that hatched into FRIEND. We know that the eggs Kris collects don’t hatch. In fact, they do nothing, except play a weird noise.

So how are the two connected? Who even is the Forgotten Man? This is a post about FRIEND, sure, but you can’t talk about FRIEND without mentioning the Forgotten Man. Not after a revelation like that.

We know the Forgotten Man can’t be Gaster. Well, at least, not PROGRAM layer/"Voice" Gaster. Sure, tons of people debated, and some are still debating, as to whether the secret 2024 Valentines Day letter and the Forgotten Man in Chapter 3 are Gaster. But allow me to point you toward this post by duxarcana on Tumblr: the Forgotten Man’s manner of speaking in the Japanese localization.

To understand, I must remind you that Gaster — or at least, the Voice in the PROGRAM layer — speaks in a mix of Kanji and Katakana. For those who don’t understand Japanese, the language has 3 different writing systems: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. Japanese is a phonetic language, which means that Japanese words are made up of distinct characters that each represent a single sound of speech. Hiragana is a good example of this: its characters are separated by sounds, such as ka, ki, ku, ke, ko, or ma, mi, mu, me, mo. Katakana is a writing system that functions basically the same as Hiragana, but its characters are slightly different, and Katakana is usually used when writing “loan words” in Japanese or to place emphasis on a word. “Loan words” are words borrowed from other languages. For example, borrowing the word “idol” from English and putting it in Japanese creates アイドル aidoru, as each character represents a specific sound needed to pronounce the English word “idol”. Lastly, Kanji is the most complex writing system, and it is derivative of Chinese characters. Essentially, Kanji are characters with specific meaning, which can be read using Hiragana. For example, the word Kanji itself is written in Kanji as 漢字かんじ ka n ji, literally meaning “Han characters” as both Japanese Kanji and Chinese Hànzì share a common foundation. … Anyway, yeah, that’s how Gaster speaks.

The Forgotten Man, on the other hand, speaks more like how characters in the Light World do, as do the Aces in the Chapter 3 Egg Room. The way characters in the Light World talk is very Hiragana-heavy, as opposed to the Kanji-heavy style of the Dark World. This is most likely because Toby intended to make the experience in the Light World, players initial introduction to DELTARUNE, be as similar to UNDERTALE as possible, and UNDERTALE’s Japanese localization is Hiragana-heavy as well.

However, the sender of the secret 2024 Valentines Day letter speaks identical to the Forgotten Man. Not only do they speak in the Light World style, but both figures speak in a masculine tone, ending certain sentences in -ka na and referring to themselves with the polite neutral first-person pronoun watashi and the listener as the informal second-person pronoun kimi. Both the Forgotten Man and the letter writer address the listener with commands ending in -nasai, which is a firm but gentle kind of of command that has a considerable parental or caregiving tone to it. Overall, they both (or rather just he, considering it’s more than likely the same person) speak warmly toward the listener, whom they address as a child.

Something duxarcana notes that I also feel is important to mention is that the Japanese translation of the weird unused poem found in Chapter 1’s code also has similar speech patterns to the Forgotten Man and the letter writer. Essentially, if you weren’t aware, there’s a few unused strings of text found in the code of Chapter 1 that people have generally assumed to be connected, given the fact that they rhyme. In the Japanese localization, the lines rhyme as well, suggesting that they are in fact connected. The poem goes like this: “Is that a cut on your face, or part of your eye? The gash weaves down as if you cry. The pain itself is reason why.” While these lines in Japanese use the Dark World style of speech, the speaker again addresses the listener as kimi, as well as ending their questions with the friendly and highly masculine particle, -kai. This is something that the Forgotten Man also does throughout his speech in Chapter 3.

Alright, so, why is this important to FRIEND? Well… consider something for a moment.

The Eggs themselves could be a reference to the Schrodinger’s Cat thought experiment. Essentially, it’s a thought experiment that Erwin Schrodinger developed to illustrate what he saw as problems, or a paradox rather, with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. The Copenhagen interpretation basically asserts that everything in quantum mechanics is indeterministic, meaning that it is all up to chance and nothing on the quantum level is causative. So, to criticize this, the thought experiment states that a hypothetical cat in a closed box can be considered to be simultaneously alive and dead as a result of its fate being linked to a random subatomic event that may or may not occur. Viewed in this way, it becomes a paradox, posing the question of when exactly quantum superposition (that is, the idea that until particles are observed by us, they are in all possible states they could be in) ends and reality resolves into one possibility or the other. When connecting this back to DELTARUNE’s Eggs, the Eggs are described as “Not too important, not too unimportant”, and when you attempt to toss the Egg in the Light World, the flavor text reads “What Egg?” This demonstrates how it’s in a superposition similar to the Schrodinger’s Cat: The Egg is both important and unimportant until you check it. When you check it or observe it, it goes into the unimportant state.

The Forgotten Man himself is also very much tied to superpositions, opposites, and contradictions. When Kris meets him behind the tree, the narration reads “Well, there is a man here” and when he is gone, it reads “Well, there is not a man here.” In the letter, there are several instances of this as well: “HAPPY NEW YEAR! OR, WAS IT THE OLD YEAR.” “WAS IT MYSELF? NO… WELL, PERHAPS.” “I NEVER FORGET SOMEONE I DON’T REMEMBER.” “NOW, PUT ON YOUR COAT AND WASH YOUR FACE! OR, PUT ON YOUR FACE AND WASH YOUR COAT. NOT NECESSARILY IN THAT ORDER. OR, IN ANY ORDER AT ALL.” In Chapter 3’s Egg Room: “YOU’LL REMEMBER ME? WELL. IN THAT CASE, FORGET ABOUT IT.” “THE EARTH WAS COVERED IN WATER, DINOSAURS APPEARED, AN ICE AGE, HM… ACTUALLY, THERE ARE STILL DINOSAURS… IS IT MIXED UP?” “HOLD YOUR BREATH, HEAD TO THE LEFT, AND COUNT BACKWARDS TO 100…”

Now, throughout DELTARUNE so far, the Egg Rooms have been strongly tied to RNG. They also exist as “out-of-bounds” rooms, as places “in-between.” In Chapters 1&2, both Egg Rooms have a 2% chance of being entered. In Chapter 3 especially, the Egg Room is very much out-of-bounds. In Chapter 4, while the Egg Room itself only requires walking between the window room and the secret room 8 times, there’s… wait.

The secret room.

In the secret room, there’s a prophecy image of a home placed between two trees and text above it that reads “ROOTS”. There’s a NPC next to it. Interacting with this NPC, they will say “I heard something in between. Something in between. It was mixed up.” Then, after this, their next sentence is a bunch of words randomly scrambled up, with each time this NPC is interacted with generating a new combination. They then end with “The poor children!”

But the scrambled sentence can be unscrambled. It can be unscrambled into: “Lost where the forest would grow, the children followed the pointed tail.”

Not only that, but on the far left of the bookshelves near the entrance to the secret room, interacting with it will describe a peculiar book. Choosing to read it will give you the text: “And so wept the fallen star, making rivers with its tears. Then, slowly, from the bitter water, something grew. It looked like glass.”

… What?

Okay, hang on, wait. Let’s talk more about this.

The Chapter 4 Egg Room, when accessed, presents as a clinic. The seventh Flying Ace that was said to be missing in Chapter 3’s Egg Room mans the front desk. They tell Kris that the patients are waiting for them. They say that they’re aware they’re quite small for a secretary, but that “KNOCK-OFFS DON’T HAVE THE RIGHT TO COMPLAIN.” It’s unclear if they’re referring to themselves here or Kris, seeing as they are a knock-off Rudinn, but Kris also isn’t actually a doctor or therapist. It could go either way.

In any case, entering the middle room will lead to an out-of-bounds area with several invisible objects to interact with. There’s an invisible tree, and standing in front of it will prompt narration that reads “(He is behind the tree…)”. Behind it, interacting will give narration that reads “(Well, there is a man here.) (Well, he seems to be pointing at something and nodding.)”. Checking the rest of the room, there is a sink, with flavor text that reads “(It's a sink.) (It would be ridiculous if you painted something and there was nowhere to wash your hands.)”. There is also a NPC, who says “Oh...! I'm sorry. I was so into drawing I didn't notice you! Are you here for Art Club? Right, this is where we draw pictures, and don't kill each other! ... What am I drawing? Oh, don't look. I'm not finished yet...”.

Finally, the last thing to be interacted with is a canvas. If you say yes to drawing, the narration will read:

Interacting with the sink afterwards will give narration that reads “(It’s a sink.) (You ran water over your hands, and dried them.) (Between your fingers, a faint grey crease glittered stubbornly.) (... You can never wash it all away.)”. Afterwards, talking to the seventh Flying Ace again will prompt this dialogue: “WELL? HOW DID THE SESSION GO? THEY SAY ART IS THERAPEUTIC. ... WHICH ONE OF YOU WAS THE PATIENT, ANYWAY? WELL, YOU GOT PAID, DIDN'T YOU?”

…

Well, this is… weird. Honestly, Chapter 3’s Egg Room was very weird already, but Chapter 4’s brings so many more questions. What pointed tail did the children follow? Who were the children? Why were they lost where the forest would grow? Why is the prophecy image called “ROOTS”? What’s with the fallen star making something that looks like glass? Who is the Forgotten Man? And what does FRIEND have to do with any of this!?

… Okay, breathe. Let’s think about this carefully.

FRIEND and the pointed tail from Hell

There’s a part of the prophecy revealed to us that falls in line with what the NPC says in the secret room. In the 3rd Sanctuary, the Princess Ribbon puzzle rooms have two missable parts of the prophecy that go together. The first one reads, “THEY’LL HEAR THE RING OF HEAVEN’S CALL.” And the second says, “THEY’LL SEE THE TAIL OF HELL TAKE CRAWL.” The image depicting the “tail of Hell” is a string made up of 11 circles. From what I’ve seen, people generally agree that this “tail” is referring to FRIEND, and that they are also the “pointed tail” the children followed. I believe that those children are Kris and Dess. Noelle could have been involved, too, and Asriel maybe as well — but I feel the safest route is to go with just Kris and Dess for now. The reason FRIEND is speculated to be the “tail from Hell” and the “pointed tail” is because of their connections to Cat Petterz, as Noelle emphasizes the complex animation of the pets in that game with how they’re made of circles. Additionally, when in battle with an Organikk, it has two interesting dialogues: “The tail (T-A-I-L) which must not be followed.” And, “The tale (T-A-L-E) which must be followed.”

Knowing all of this, it’d be reasonable to assume that FRIEND is a part of the prophecy. But the thing that confuses me about this is… their name in the files follows the same naming convention as everything on the PROGRAM layer — everything associated with Gaster. Many people have taken this to mean that Gaster created FRIEND, or at least has some connection to them. Does this mean that Gaster also created the prophecy, then?

To be fair, in Chapter 1, Ralsei says that the prophecy has been “foretold by time and space”. This is also the phrasing Catti uses when improvising her reading in Church during Chapter 4. The phrase “time and space” has been used in a different context, specifically in UNDERTALE by the 2nd Gaster Follower: “Alphys might work faster. But the old Royal Scientist, Doctor W.D. Gaster? One day, he vanished without a trace. They say he shattered across time and space.” Of course, it’s entirely possible still that the phrasing in itself isn’t anything to really analyze. So, I propose another piece of evidence: on the Wayback Machine, you can find an archived version of the DELTARUNE website from 2015 where it’s nothing more than a black screen with a small, very low contrast image containing text in WingDings. The image is called “him.png” and when the image’s contrast is increased and the text transliterated, it reads, “THIS NEXT EXPERIMENT SEEMS VERY VERY INTERESTING”, the final quote of the text found in UNDERTALE’s inaccessible “room_gaster”. Then, later in 2016-2017, the image’s text was updated. Increasing the contrast and transliterating the text, it reads, “THREE HEROES APPEARED TO BANISH THE ANGEL S HEAVEN”. This is directly paraphrasing Ralsei’s summary of the prophecy he gives in Chapter 1.

So it’s obvious that Gaster can be connected to the prophecy in some way. You could go even further and argue that the prophecy originated from the Dark Worlds or the Depths, given that both Ralsei and the prophecy itself states that it was “whispered among shadows” long ago. Sure, the prophecy is ancient, but Gaster was shattered across time and space — meaning, he could very well exist across every moment of time, whether past, present, or future.

The one thing I question though is, if Gaster was the one who created the prophecy, why does he want to create a new future? Specifying a new future would imply that there’s already a future, or that there was an old future. One that he saw, or knows about in some way, and that he wants to change. Following the Device Theory, Gaster is responsible for creating DELTARUNE the executable, to connect us to its world and create a new future. So, if he wants to create a new future, why would he have created the prophecy? Is he simply bored? Is the “Gaster is an analogue for a game dev” idea true, in that he just wants to see what a new variable — us, the players — can do with the story his experiment is involved with? Or did he not actually create the prophecy, but just changed it? In that case, who created the prophecy originally?

… I think this is getting a bit off track again.

The Part Where I Rant About Gaster

Okay, so, to put it bluntly… I definitely think that connections can be made between Gaster and DELTARUNE, and that it’s intentional. And at the same time, while I fully anticipate there to be a build-up to a Gaster reveal of some kind — especially seeing as how Chapter 4 ends with him acknowledging the halfway point — I’m still very hesitant to connect so much of DELTARUNE’s narrative to him. I know that sounds silly, especially if you’re someone who’s very well-versed in DELTARUNE lore. But Toby clearly extends a lot of care toward the more casual side of the playerbase as well, which consist of people who probably have never heard of Gaster, or haven’t dug deep enough to put the pieces together themselves. That’s not to say he doesn’t care for the more lore-obsessed part of the playerbase — if he didn’t, why would DELTARUNE have any secrets to begin with? I’m just saying, I think that for as much as Gaster’s presence can be felt throughout the game to those invested in him, he’s still very much a concept. Figuratively and literally.

I mean, think about it: the guy is literally shattered across time and space. He’s not a person, nor even an entity — he’s a force. A concept. A series of phenomena. At this point, “Gaster” is just a label we can ascribe to patterns our brains recognize and lump together. And that’s not a bad thing! In fact, with where we are right now in DELTARUNE’s overall story, both narrative and metanarrative, I feel like that’s the point. Whether Gaster is meant to be an analogue for a game dev, a game modder, or just some other sort of force integral to the game while also having some degree of perceived detachment from it, all of these things can still work under the idea that he more so represents a concept.

I mentioned earlier how one of DELTARUNE’s most beloved parts is its secrets, and I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if metanarratively, the concept of “Gaster” as an umbrella term for all things that can be associated with him — the number 6, darkness, “darker yet darker”, “very, very interesting”, and so on — is meant to represent a player’s curiosity and their need to figure out and understand every secret, every unknown thing. To me, Gaster is the epitome of Easter Eggs and secrets. Perhaps that’s why Noelle in particular has so many connections to him. Again, following the Device Theory, Noelle’s character fits into the theme of nostalgia and curiosity under the escapism and freedom umbrella themes. She has a knack for encountering glitches in games and finding secrets, discovering weird phenomena seemingly no one else has ever experienced. Even her theme, Girl Next Door, has Gaster’s Theme in it. It makes sense, then, that she’s the variable required to go as far off the beaten path as possible, in the form of the Weird Route.

Of course, I could be entirely wrong. And I’m happy to be wrong! I’d love to see a Gaster reveal of any kind. I have confidence in Toby’s writing. There’s still three (or four) chapters left, and that’s plenty of time to develop Gaster further within the main story, beyond just references that can only be understood if you’re already aware of pre-existing secrets. Personally, I just wouldn’t be so sure we’ll meet him in person, or even fight him. Because like I said, I think Gaster is more of a concept at this point in time, considering he was literally shattered across time and space. Then again, the same Gaster Follower who says that also claims to be holding a piece of him, so maybe we’ll see a fragment of Gaster at some point. Even if it isn’t “fully” him. Whatever happens, I’m sure it’ll be very, very interesting…!

Anyway. Back to FRIEND.

FRIEND and the Poor Children

Let's ask a more relevant question: FRIEND is the tail which must not be followed, and they’re the tail from Hell. In that case, they are the pointed tail that Kris and Dess followed. But what does this mean? What happened?

We know that Kris went to art therapy to try and find a way of expressing what they’d seen behind the tree. From what it seems like, the Chapter 4 Egg Room is a garbled, repressed memory of Kris’ — and that would be in line with the Forgotten Man, who claims that Kris has forgotten him many times before. From all of this, it’s very clear that whatever happened between them and Dess, it was something very traumatic for Kris. Additionally, considering the flavor text when Kris washes their hands in the sink, about never being able to wash it all away, along with the NPC’s dialogue where they talk about art therapy being a place where they all “draw pictures, and don’t kill each other”, I think it’s understandable to assume that Kris might have done something. Something violent or cruel or bad.

It’s also hinted at in the battle against NIGHTMARE — they say to Kris that part of them just enjoys it, even adding in the Weird Route that it’s like how they enjoyed yesterday, knowing they could say it wasn’t really them. NIGHTMARE further says at the end of their battle that Kris’ eyes can’t hide it; without play, the knife grows dull. Honestly, the entirety of the Sword Route, with how Ramb proposes the original game to Kris as “freedom” in that it’s an alternate path away from the games Tenna has made, just for it to be restrictive in itself, with the only option being violence, is interesting to me. Because the thing about that is that, in a way, being able to carry out otherwise morally reprehensible actions in a safe, controlled environment like a video game, is freeing. It goes to show that Kris found comfort in those kinds of games as a child, because it helped them express their intrusive thoughts and urges in a mostly healthy way. Kris is someone who experiences violent tendencies, intrusive thoughts and urges — the contrast between some of their dialogue options highlights this. And all of this makes the Weird Route so much more interesting, because it’s taking advantage of Kris’ struggles, enabling them, and leading to actual harm.

… And you know something interesting about the NIGHTMARE battle? FRIEND is there.

Now, just to get this out of the way — I do not think Kris is a bad person. I don’t think they enjoy seriously hurting others. They’re shown on numerous occasions, even outside of our influence, that they care about other people, especially their friends. Sure, they can pull some dark pranks, they can be blunt, but I honestly feel like that has more to do with them struggling to empathize and not always understanding what others need. This does not make them a bad person. It’s a Toby Fox game, for crying out loud, of course the morality of characters is going to be complex. Kris is not completely good, nor are they completely bad. They’re a mentally ill teenager, and while this doesn’t absolve them from doing harm, it provides the necessary context.

So, what do I think FRIEND has to do with all of this? Well, I think they are what Kris saw behind the tree, taking the shape of a man. A man made of shadow — dark, amorphous, the only defined thing about them being their odd eyes and creepy smile. But they spoke to Kris, tempting them. They presented as a friend, speaking to them in a fond, almost parental manner — after all, Kris was just a child. But what did they say to Kris? I think they offered Kris something, in exchange for another thing. A deal. Or, alternatively, they tempted Kris, knowing they were an impressionable child unable to control their intrusive urges. Whatever the deal or temptation was, I think it had to do with Dess. Something like, “Don’t I look real? Bring a friend with you, then. If they see me, that means I’m real!” Something along those lines.

Then, later, Kris brought Dess along. Because they felt safe with her. She could understand them — she was always able to calm them down during their outbursts. She knew what it was like to be the "weird kid".

But Kris couldn’t find their friend, the man. Where was he? They insisted on finding him, dragging Dess along every step of the way. Every glimpse of a pointed tail, dark like a shadow, just like the man, they followed. Lost where the forest would grow, the children followed the pointed tail. The tail which must not be followed.

Eventually, it led them to the shelter. But Kris needed to show Dess. And Dess, thinking perhaps Kris was just scared of something, that if she opened the shelter it’d calm Kris’ nerves and confirm nothing was really there, promised Kris that the two of them would go back later. After a bit of persuading, Kris agreed. This gave Dess time to investigate for the shelter codes. When she did find them, she was quick to bring it up to Kris, and later the two of them headed back out to the shelter.

They opened it and went inside. At first, nothing seemed wrong. It was dark, dusty, and littered with cobwebs, but nothing too odd. Then, the more they walked in, the greater the shelter’s size became; the walls stopped existing, and the darkness kept growing. But Dess kept Kris close, and she remained brave for them.

That is, until the ground gave way underneath her.

She slipped and fell, her hands grabbing hold of the cliff Kris stood at the edge of. Dess begged Kris to help, but they were paralyzed with fear. Every moment that passed by felt like an eternity. The fear in Dess’ eyes as she tried to calm Kris despite everything, telling them that it was okay, that they can do it, they’re strong, they can help her.

After a moment, Kris shakily reached down and helped her up. As Dess dusted herself off, looking toward the dark abyss below, Kris glanced back at the entrance to the shelter.

Outside, they saw it. The pointed tail.

Kris pulled at Dess’ sleeve, urging her to follow them. They ran out, and Dess called after them, telling them to slow down. She hurried after Kris, heading for the entrance.

But when Kris was already outside, just before Dess could leave—

The doors slammed shut.

Kris stopped. They turned back, and saw the doors now closed. Looking back where they saw the pointed tail, they decided to go back to the shelter. But when they knocked on the door, called out Dess’ name, banged on the door, kicked it, yelled her name some more… nothing happened. Nobody answered.

And the panic set in.

That set everything in motion. Dess’ disappearance, Carol becoming more and more controlling, Asgore’s investigation and getting removed from the police force, the Dreemurrs and Holidays becoming distant, Toriel and Asgore’s marriage falling out… everything. Noelle’s trauma, Kris’ trauma, the guilt, the memories being repressed…

… wait, did I say that FRIEND is the Forgotten Man?

Oh yeah.

FRIEND is the Forgotten Man

This is an insane take. I know. Just bear with me.

Both FRIEND and the Forgotten Man have associations with RNG, out-of-bounds areas, and in-between states. They both have connections to eggs. And, with FRIEND existing on the PROGRAM layer, it’s especially intriguing that the Forgotten Man just seems to know both DELTA RUNE the prophecy and DELTARUNE the executable. I went over all of this earlier, and I also went into how the Forgotten Man most likely isn’t Gaster, due to his manner of speech in the Japanese localization. Instead, he speaks in the Light World style, and the way he speaks to the listener is akin to that of how a parent speaks to a child; friendly, warm. Now, one could argue that maybe he’s a fragment of Gaster, just one that speaks differently. But I feel like that complicates things more than they should. If Gaster is capable of making direct appearances through presenting as various fragments of himself, each taking on a different manner of speech and personality, I feel like that gets hard to keep track of and write consistently.

Additionally, one thing I haven’t mentioned is the possible hint toward the Egg Rooms from all the way back in UNDERTALE. Normally I don’t like to draw too many connections between the two games and assume Toby’s intentions any more than necessary — they are different games, after all. But I find this particular thing to be interesting. Even if it wasn’t intentional, I feel like it should still be talked about.

In the True Lab, when you enter the refrigerator room before turning on the lab ventilation in another room, interacting with the fridges through the fog can generate some strange narration. One reads, “There’s something here… Something in the shape of a man.” And the other, “There’s something here… It feels like a tree, ripe with delicious fruit.” By itself, this feels like a reference to the Forgotten Man. But, when you go into the lab ventilation room specifically to dispel the fog in the refrigerator room, it leads to an unavoidable encounter with Endogeny. Endogeny, the Amalgamate most people thought of when we saw FRIEND in the Chapter 3 Dark World explanation cutscene. Again, maybe this is just a coincidence. But it sticks out to me.

One might say, “Okay, but that doesn’t prove that FRIEND is the Forgotten Man. If it suggests anything, it’s just that they’re connected.” And I would agree. But we also have to consider how FRIEND, despite taking on an appearance similar to Endogeny in one cutscene, still isn’t exactly shown to have a consistent appearance, beyond their odd eyes and creepy smile. They can be a disembodied eyes and mouth, layered over the darkness; they can be a cat head that pops out of the ground and crawls like so; they can take on an Amalgamate-like appearance; they can even be just entirely black, only visible when silhouetted against soundwaves. It serves as a reminder that Noelle says in her /egg/ blog post that she thinks maybe because she had so many mods installed, the egg just “didn’t know what to hatch into.” All of these things suggest that, if FRIEND doesn’t have a fully consistent appearance, they could very well be capable of shapeshifting.

So, okay. Let’s say FRIEND can shapeshift. But there’s still one problem. If FRIEND presented themselves as an egg to Noelle that “left due to happiness” when she wasn’t looking, how did they get there? One of the ways the /egg/ post can be accessed is through the /man/ webpage. This suggests that Noelle was given the egg. Does that mean FRIEND and the Forgotten Man are separate entities after all, and that the Forgotten Man just gave Noelle an egg that hatched into FRIEND? … Not necessarily. I don’t think FRIEND just wasn’t existing before that point. After all, they’re clearly connected to the incident between Kris and Dess and whatever was behind the tree. This would imply they were around well before Noelle received the egg.

I think what happened is that, given Noelle’s thing for encountering weird secrets, glitches, and phenomena in video games, it drew the attention of FRIEND, who offered themselves to Noelle in the form of an egg. But why? What was their intention in doing that? Well, if we assume that the voice in the UNUSED text found in the code is Dess, she notes how she hears scratching. She even grows fond of it, considering it someone or something that listens to her. With all of FRIEND’s connections to cats, it’s easy to think, oh, cats have a tendency to scratch on things, whether it be to relieve boredom or stress, to maintain their claws, or mark their territory. So, perhaps the scratching was FRIEND. Furthermore, if we also assume Dess to be the Roaring Knight (given all the evidence that points to it), we know that she makes the exact same laugh noise as FRIEND. So perhaps the two are connected in some way, and FRIEND recognized Noelle as someone important to Dess, if not as her younger sister; and they offered themselves to Noelle as an egg, as a gift from Dess, in a weird way. This still leaves out the specifics of why FRIEND would do something like this, especially if they were the one who led to Dess getting trapped in the shelter. But again, FRIEND is associated with RNG. It could have been that FRIEND wasn’t acting on any sort of causation or reason when leading Kris and Dess to the shelter, and instead, it was the result of randomness. So them giving Noelle an egg could have also been a random event, just not one that ended badly. After all, we know FRIEND was likely responsible for Spamton’s sudden success and fortune.

Maybe this is why Gaster also sees the Eggs as an “issue”. I didn't mention it, but on the PlayStation version, it’s only possible to achieve the CHAPTER END trophies if you haven’t collected an Egg in a Chapter. The trophy requirement reads, “COMPLETE WITHOUT ISSUE.” This implies that Gaster views the Eggs as an “issue”. If FRIEND is indeed responsible for the Eggs, it could be because they are so unpredictable, their very nature is pure randomness, making them an unknown variable in the experiment. It could lead to them getting in the way of things. Still, Gaster makes no real attempt to stop the Eggs from being obtained, or FRIEND from being seen. This leads me to think that, even if FRIEND is a kind of unknown variable, it still lends something of potential value to Gaster’s experiment. Maybe he wants to see how we handle an obstacle like FRIEND. To add on to that, despite FRIEND’s file name following the same naming convention as other assets found in the PROGRAM layer, I don’t think Gaster necessarily had to create FRIEND. Maybe he did, and it was on accident, but to me, FRIEND feels more like something that just created itself. Seeing how they’re able to traverse the various layers of reality, how their appearance is seemingly capable of shifting from one thing to another, maybe they represent what our brains are capable of imagining in the dark. After all, our minds can’t make sense of nothing, so we have to fill it in with something. In that case, if Kris saw FRIEND as a man behind the tree, maybe it was when it was getting dark out. If Dess is the voice in UNUSED, and if FRIEND is the scratching that she grows fond of over time, maybe FRIEND represents Dess’ mind making sense of the pure darkness she was trapped in. The many times we see FRIEND in-game anyway are instances where they appear for a split second in the dark. It’s like, when you think you see something in the corner of your eye, or when a lump of clothes in the dark looks like a person briefly. It catches you off guard. That’s what FRIEND partly represents, to me.

Of course, that’s not all that they represent. To me, there’s other things they have connections to. But I’ll get to that later. For now, there’s one problem I haven’t touched on yet: what if the Forgotten Man is just a Lightner? If he speaks like a Lightner in the Japanese localization, this could mean that he is a Lightner, right? Well… look at the Roaring Knight. They’re seen by Susie in the Light World, even if she can’t identify who exactly they are. But the weapon that drops from them when we win their fight is the Black Shard, a weapon that specifically doesn’t change between the Light and Dark World. So, the Roaring Knight is in a weird situation where they’re neither fully Lightner nor Darkner… what if it’s the same for FRIEND? And, on top of that, if they do actually have the ability to shapeshift, what if they’re just mimicking the speaking style of a Lightner as part of their act? Considering their more meta aspects, too, the different speaking style is only noticeable to us as players, and that could be intentional.

Another thing is that, again, FRIEND is very much connected to out-of-bounds areas. The Chapter 3 Egg Room is unique, in that it looks sort of like one of Tenna’s games, or the S-rank backstage game. With DELTARUNE’s layered realities, Chapter 3 featuring a video game inside a video game, and those two layers crossing over, I feel that the appearance of Chapter 3’s Egg Room is intentional and connects even more to FRIEND. Because FRIEND’s file name implies they are connected to the DEPTHS, and they can not only be seen in the out-of-bounds parts of Dark Worlds, but also in the S-rank backstage game. But then, how did they get to the Light World, if they seem very specifically tied to out-of-bounds areas and lower realities? Well, again, maybe when Kris saw them behind the tree, it was dark out. The Roaring Knight comes out of the shelter at night at the end of Chapter 3. While that could just be because it’s quieter at night and nobody’s really awake or around, maybe it also suggests that the Roaring Knight isn’t capable of going out during the day, and this extends to FRIEND. Seam also warns in Chapter 2 after returning to Castle Town and recruiting 9 or more Darkners that you “don’t want to get caught when the sun goes down”. While this could just be a general piece of advice, it’s odd that it precedes Kris and Susie going home, just for Kris to open the door to their house and open a Dark Fountain in the middle of the night. I know this isn’t the best bit of evidence, but it’s really all I can think of. Regardless, FRIEND still seems like the entity responsible for leading Kris and Dess to the shelter, so one way or another they accessed the Light World. But it’s unclear as to how.

Okay, now, I can also share some other connections that I think FRIEND may have.

FRIEND and serpents

This one’s a bit more tenuous in my opinion, but FRIEND can be connected to serpents. In the event that they are the “tail from Hell” as well as “the pointed tail”, it reminds me of how in the Bible, the Devil took the form of a serpent to tempt Eve into taking a bite of an apple and unleashing knowledge of good and evil upon the world. Am I saying FRIEND is the Devil? No, but they’re not the only character in DELTARUNE to have Devil and Hell imagery. There’s Gaster, and there’s also Kris, who is strongly associated with apples and even had a headband with devil horns. Also, the Roaring Knight, or Dess, is potentially connected to Devil motifs as well — given many of the Knight’s attacks resemble stars, and are of the Dark/Star element, it’s fair to assume that the book’s text in the Chapter 4 secret room about a “fallen star” is referencing them. Again, one of the most common names for the Devil in Christian theology is Lucifer, which can mean “light-bringer” and “morningstar”. Lucifer is also portrayed as a fallen angel, a heavenly being cast out and having fallen from grace. Considering both DELTARUNE and UNDERTALE’s religious imagery, I can see this being intentional. Though, if Dess is the Knight, calling her a “fallen star” could also potentially reference her being a musical prodigy who met a tragic fate.

Regardless, considering FRIEND, I feel that given how tied they are to RNG and such, they very much fit the Devil imagery, specifically a “deal with the Devil” type situation or the whole tempting thing. It’s also particularly interesting to me that in the Princess Ribbon puzzle room, between the “Ring of Heaven” and “Tail of Hell” prophecies, there’s actually another secret room that you can access if you’re knocked down by water in the middle of the climbing wall. In this secret room, there’s another instance of the “Jockington grows the beard” prophecy, and a NPC with dialogue that references the NPC that can be found in the first Jockington prophecy room: “Before the clock strikes midnight, the shadow will grow! O, the shadow will grow, serpentine! Even when the clock ran back, the shadow was growing! A patch of shadow, slithering on, slithering on, serpentine! ... So sayeth our ancestors. Crazy fellows, the lot!” To be fair, this could just be a joke, but I find the emphasis on “slithering” and “serpentine” to be very interesting, especially in-between the “Ring of Heaven” and “Tail of Hell” prophecies. If FRIEND is indeed the tail from Hell, then this could hint toward serpent associations. Also, snakes hatch from eggs, so considering Noelle’s /egg/ post and the idea of FRIEND being the Forgotten Man… yeah.

Darkness in general, in Chapter 4 specifically, also seems to be connected to slithering and serpents. When battling the Titan, two lines of flavor text reference these things. The first one reads, “The darkness slithers.” The second one reads, “The darkness gives a long gaze, which slithered like a snake.” Also, this one is again more tenuous, but another bit of flavor text reads, “For a moment, you felt your heart being gripped.” When I read this line in conjunction with the other two, I think of how some snakes constrict their prey by coiling around them and suffocating them. It could very well be nothing, but I find it neat.

What narrative significance does FRIEND (being the Forgotten Man) have?

While speculating is fun, it’s important to remember that DELTARUNE is not just a game where events chronologically unfold, it’s also a story with a narrative and messages being conveyed. So, if FRIEND is so relevant to the story, and if they are the Forgotten Man, why would Toby have done so? What does their presence bring to the narrative, and how does it tie into the themes of DELTARUNE?

Well, DELTARUNE, to me, is about not just escapism, but also about identity, roles, and expectations. I can make a separate post going more into that another time, but for now, we can talk about how that concerns Kris. I’ve gone over them a bit in this video so far, but from what we know, they’re obviously a very troubled person. They have their own history, rife with trauma and struggles, but they’re also the only human in Hometown. They don’t seem to particularly like being human, or just humans in general. They close a book on how to care for humans quickly after seeing unfamiliar faces inside. They wore a red headband with devil horns to fit in with their monster family. Whatever Ralsei is, it’s obvious that he’s connected to Kris in some way, perhaps what their younger self imagined their ideal self to be. It’s even possible that Kris tearing out the SOUL isn’t a new thing for them, because the birdcage in Chapter 1 is said to have seen quite a few crashes and has a bloodstain right next to it (Sidenote: that’s not me saying the SOUL is originally Kris’. There’s a lot of evidence suggesting it potentially isn’t. But again, that’s for another time). And considering the SOUL is also distinctly a human SOUL, and a SOUL is the culmination of one’s being, it makes sense that Kris would have a bad history with their SOUL. It represents a "truth" about what they are at their core, one that they do not like, one that potentially scares them.

So, what does FRIEND have to do with this? I think that in the case of FRIEND being the Forgotten Man, they took on a shadowy form of a human. To me, FRIEND represents what I talked about earlier: recognizing something that isn’t really there. The uncanny. Seeing a coat rack in the dark and doing a double take because it looks like a person. Or seeing something in the corner of your eye. FRIEND being from the DEPTHS and also, in the event of them being the Forgotten Man, seemingly having knowledge about the history of the world itself, makes them a sort of “primordial Darkner” in that sense.

FRIEND took the shadowy form of a human to get Kris’ attention. But I imagine that seeing a human, especially a creepy shadowy one, scared Kris. So FRIEND spoke to them in a warm, fond tone, regarding them as a child but in a kind way. Still, this didn’t exactly ease Kris’ fears. They couldn’t be sure that this human-looking thing was real, or just their imagination. So I think that’s when FRIEND told them “Bring a friend along, if they see me, that means I’m real!” And then it led to Kris bringing along Dess.

I don’t think Kris literally hallucinated FRIEND, or imagined them, but I do think that FRIEND sort of represents that. After all, they’re seemingly able to change their appearance whenever, and their name is FRIEND. They’re an imaginary friend. But also, while I’m not a medical professional by any means, I wouldn’t be surprised if Kris struggles with a mental disorder that involves some psychotic symptoms like hallucinations. Mainly because Kris just… really has a lot of inner conflict, I’m sorry I keep bringing it up, if you can’t tell they’re my favorite character and I find them so fascinating. I’ll cover all that more in depth in another video like I said.

Also, this is more of a last minute addition — another post I saw by chairmansans intrigued me. I find this fascinating if it is true, and if FRIEND was so heavily involved. It really makes me consider the whole “FRIEND represents the ways in which the imagination runs wild in the dark” thing a lot more. It also makes sense in the case that Dess is the Knight, because then all of the Knight’s connections to FRIEND also make more sense. If Dess was struggling with paranoia, then her becoming the Knight and taking on an appearance resembling one of the Titans, such that her appearance doesn’t change in the Light World, effectively “trapping” her inside a shell of fear, it just adds to what FRIEND represents narratively. A fear of the unknown, the need to fill in the gaps with something. Desperation, imagination, uncertainty, temptation…

I never really did talk about it, but FRIEND also has connections to the concept of freedom. Freedom is a large part of DELTARUNE, but what’s interesting to me is that it’s always associated with things otherwise seen as scary. Like, Jevil is a crazy clown, Spamton is a puppet, Ramb and NIGHTMARE are basically Creepypastas, Gerson is essentially a ghost, and Mike is… well. Mike is three people pretending to be one person, and we just don’t know who that one person actually is, making them unknown. All of these characters who are connected to the concept of freedom represent fear in some way. And I think that’s intentional. Freedom is a thrilling concept, not just because the idea of not being bound by anything and being able to do whatever you want is intriguing, but also because it’s scary. It’s scary for that exact same reason. And FRIEND fits in with that perfectly. Especially if you believe they’re the one who drove Jevil and Spamton mad. And they have all these ties to Hell, the Devil, RNG, and so on, it really makes me more and more convinced that they’re also the embodiment of a “Deal with the Devil” type situation. Like, “You want freedom, don’t you? I’m at your humble service! But first, here’s the truth of the world…” In exchange for freedom, FRIEND basically strips Jevil and Spamton of their sanity.

So, where do I think all of this is headed? What will happen with FRIEND if they’re the Forgotten Man, and what does it mean for Kris? Honestly, I think that the Eggs are especially interesting here. They provide insight into memories and parts of Kris’ childhood that they’ve very heavily repressed. But, they are also literal Easter Eggs, secrets in a video game. So, to me, they represent two things, one narratively and the other metanarratively. Narratively, the Eggs represent something that Kris is slowly building toward “hatching”; they signify rebirth, cracking the shell and freeing oneself from those confines, starting anew. But metanarratively, the Eggs represent Easter Eggs, video game secrets, seeking out and hunting down everything there is to know about a game, and satisfying one’s curiosity. Do you see where I’m going with this? I think that collecting all the Eggs might bring Kris their “freedom”. But I don’t think this is necessarily the kind of freedom we’re expecting. See, FRIEND has a lot of meta aspects to them. A large part of Kris’ character is also very meta. What we’re doing by collecting all of these Eggs is sort of following the pointed tail ourselves. Seeing what will happen. And along the way, we learn about Kris. As Kris is brought along for all of this, they also unearth their own memories, bit by bit. But is this really what Kris wants? Is Kris ready to face their trauma? How do we know following the pointed tail will lead us to something good, and not something bad? Those are things worth considering. Now, I’m not really sure why exactly FRIEND would be doing this, or why the game has the Eggs as an option at all… Maybe it has to do with Dess. Maybe it’s a metanarrative thing. Maybe it's a way the prophecy manifests itself. Maybe it's symbolism or metaphorical. Or maybe it’s something we just have to wait and see for ourselves.

Either way, I get the feeling that the fifth Chapter will feature FRIEND, as in Lord of the Hammer, the fifth Chapter is called “The Field of Pink and Gold”. It’s also where we’ll collect the final Shadow Crystal. I suspect it’ll also be where we find the final Egg, but maybe there’s more than five of those. Regardless, I feel that FRIEND will make a more direct appearance in Chapter 5. Whether they’re the next secret boss, or they just make an appearance, I really hope that we learn more about them. I think given how Asgore has a lot of similarities to Spamton, such as losing a very successful career, his relationships falling apart, struggling financially, and so on, it makes him a prime target for someone like FRIEND. So maybe, Asgore will be under the influence of FRIEND in some way. Gerson summarizes the fifth Chapter in Lord of the Hammer as “the vast garden is charred in an inferno of jealousy” — and while “inferno” likely just refers to fire, it’s also a term for Hell. And, well, again, FRIEND does seem to have Devil motifs, so…

Whatever Toby is planning for FRIEND, I’m very excited. Or maybe FRIEND will never actually have any lore relevance at all and everything’s a coincidence and Jockington is actually the tail from Hell and FRIEND just becomes DELTARUNE’s Everyman or Mystery Man or something. … Anyway!

Conclusion

Thank you for reading! I’m sorry if this is all over the place, it’s probably messy, because I don’t exactly know how to format stuff like this and organizing my thoughts is difficult. But I really wanted to talk about FRIEND and the insane ideas I have about them. Even if I end up being absolutely, totally off the mark, and it’s really embarrassing, at least I had fun while doing it! I love weird cat things, so FRIEND just appeals to me.

Credit where credit is due, of course; wandydoodles on Twitter compiled a lot of FRIEND findings, especially their connections to RNG and lucky cats. They are a big fan of FRIEND, so shoutout to them for the info they've gathered.

In any case, thanks again, and I hope you take care! Here’s some pictures of flowers I took that reminded me of FRIEND. Pattern recognition creates brainrot.

#deltarune #deltarune meta #deltarune spoilers #deltarune chapter 3 #deltarune chapter 3 spoilers #deltarune chapter 4 #deltarune chapter 4 spoilers #image friend #device friend #friend deltarune #deltarune friend #the forgotten man #egg room #deltarune theory #kris deltarune #kris dreemurr #dess holiday #dess deltarune #noelle holiday #noelle deltarune #this was originally a script for a video. i might still make it into one. but recording is very hard.#also i didnt mention it but the fact FRIEND appears from the chair in susie's room is curious. makes me wonder what that's about if anythin #but tbh i do just think FRIEND represents fear and freedom and how those 2 concepts intertwine. so that could be it #again i dont really know Why a very meta entity would be a part of the prophecy but i mean. (looks at player angel theory) Yeah #and their motives aren't really clear either but i think that is the point esp from the angle of schrodinger's cat (if intentional)#that whole paradox was a criticism of the idea that particle interactions are inherently random and not causative at all #which if we connect it to FRIEND its like. oh their actions arent causative or anything its just random #but IDK maybe thats boring to some people.. i just dont think we know enough to speculate their motives #but trying to piece together what they represent within the narrative is more interesting to me imo

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tiredandoptimistic · 7 months ago

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TSC Fandom Survey Results

The time has finally come for me to share my data! For those unaware, I've spent the past week running a survey in which people ranked TSC books, characters, and ships. In the end, 50 people filled out my survey, which is way more than I expected! About 23% of the people who looked at the survey filled it out, and everyone who started finished it.

First off I'll post the simple rankings from each category, and below the cut I'll show the more complex results with explanations for why people voted the way they did.

Best series: 1. The Infernal Devices 2. The Mortal Instruments 3. The Dark Artifices 4. The Last Hours 5. The Eldest Curses 6. The Wicked Powers 7. The Secret Treasons

Best main girl: 1. Tessa Gray 2. Clary Fairchild 3. Emma Carstairs 4. Cordelia Carstairs 5. Dru Blackthorn

Best main couple: 1. Will/Tessa/Jem 2. Will/Tessa 3. Clary/Jace 4. Jem/Tessa 5. Julian/Emma 6. James/Cordelia 7. Dru/Ash

Best side couple: 1. Magnus/Alec 2. Simon/Isabelle 3. Thomas/Alastair 4. Kit/Ty 5. Kieran/Mark/Cristina 6. Charlotte/Henry 7. Sophie/Gideon 8. Gabriel/Cecily 9. Helen/Aline 10. Grace/Christopher 11. Gwyn/Diana 12. Lucie/Jesse 13. Ari/Anna

Best side character: 1. Raphael Santiago 2. Lily Chen 3. Maia Roberts 4. Ragnor Fell 5. George Lovelace 6. Catarina Loss 7. Livvy Blackthorn 8. Jessamine Lovelace 9. Luke Graymark 10. Jocelyn Fairchild 11. Maryse Lightwood 12. Eugenia Lightwood 13. Jordan Kyle 14. Robert Lightwood 15. Jaime Rosales 16. Michael Wayland 17. Amatis Graymark 18. Camille Belcourt 19. Nate Gray 20. Charles Fairchild

Best younger sibling/child: 1. Max Lightwood-Bane 2. Rafael Lightwood-Bane 3. Mina Carstairs 4. Max Lightwood 5. Tavvy Blackthorn 6. Alex Lightwood 7. Zachary Carstairs

Best villain: 1. Sebastian Morgenstern 2. Valentine Morgenstern 3. Annabel Blackthorn 4. Malcolm Fade 5. Axel Mortmain 6. Asmodeus 7. Shinyun Jung 8. Benedict Lightwood 9. Tatiana Blackthorn 10. Belial

Best side book: 1. Tales From the Shadowhunter Academy 2. Ghosts of the Shadow Market 3. The Bane Chronicles 4. Secrets of Blackthorn Hall 5. An Illustrated History of Notable Shadowhunters and Denizens of Downworld 6. The Shadowhunter's Codex 7. Better in Black 8. A Sea Change

Huzzah! Putting this all together has been so much fun for me, and I want to quickly thank everybody who participated! I also want to remind everyone that this was just for fun, and no reason to get mad at anybody. We're obviously never gonna agree on everything, we just need to respect each other's opinions.

If you want to know the nitty gritty of how every character was ranked, how the different series measured up against each other across categories, and why people like or dislike various books and characters, then keep reading below the cut! I made a spreadsheet, please come gaze upon my beautiful spreadsheet.

Here we go, time for the real shit!

Be warned, you will probably read mean things about characters you love and nice things about characters you hate. Angry rants about how you can't believe anyone would think that way belong in DMs to your friends, not the notes of my post. I do welcome discussion, just nothing that's targeted at other people. Also, I will be doing my best to explain people's opinions, that doesn't mean that I agree with them. I'm just trying to document. If I'm sharing my genuine personal opinion on anything, I'll make that clear.

You'll be seeing screenshots from my big spreadsheet throughout this thing. Here's your key: Columns represent characters/ships/series, rows represent a ranking. Each cell shows how many people assigned that rank to that character (for example, the intersection of 3 and Sizzy will be the number of people who voted Sizzy as their second favorite side ship). At the bottom there will be the average rank this character received, which was calculated by the program I used for the survey. I have all the columns color coordinated by which series each character/ship belongs to, and each column will have one box outlined which shows the rank that character received most often (as in, the intersection of Sizzy and 3 is outlined because Sizzy got more #3 votes than #1 #2 #4 or #5). Some columns have multiple boxes outlined, in the case of ties.

Make sense?

Alright, let's go!

First off, it's everyone's favorite series. As you can see, TID was significantly ahead of all the others. TMI and TDA were neck and neck, frequently switching back and forth for that #2 spot. TLH was a bit lower than the other three, and TEC, TWP, and TST all ranked dramatically lower.

To explain why they liked TID, people talked about finding the series nostalgic, enjoying how the characters are woven into the plot, the historical setting, and how it expands the worldbuilding of TSC while still working as a contained story. People also mentioned enjoying specific characters like Will, Jessamine, and Gabriel. By far the most common comment though was just that people love Herongraystairs. The only negative comments came from people who said that they didn't find the concept interesting, and were disappointed by the lack of their favorite modern characters.

Talking about TMI, the most common positive comments were that the series was fun, nostalgic, and had the best cast of characters (specifically Alec, Magnus, and Simon). People also enjoy the modern setting, the interpersonal relationships (especially Malec), and how the world is seen to develop from where it was in the historical era. TMI has the fewest haters, but some people said that they just didn't find it as captivating as later series, or that they were put off by the incest plotline. I also received the criticism that the characters are annoying, and that the story could have been compressed into fewer books.

For TDA, a lot of people mentioned finding the characters relatable, enjoying the plot, and liking the Blackthorn family dynamic. The characters and ships who got specific shout-outs were Blackstairs, Kierarktina, and Mark. People also like the modern setting, found it to be emotional, and think that it effectively juggles a large cast of characters. Plus, people appreciate getting autistic representation from Ty. It has a solid number of detractors too, who say that they don't like Blackstairs (especially Julian), Thule, the Cohort, or the focus on Faerie politics. They also say that it has too many plotlines, takes itself too seriously, and that the last book (Queen of Air and Darkness) made them drop the series.

While TLH was ranked last of the main series, I'd like to point out that it has the same number of #1 votes as TDA, signaling that it has a similar number of intense fans. The difference really comes in with the lack of #2 or #3 votes, showing that people don't tend to be casual fans of the series. By far the most popular thing brought up by TLH enjoyers is the characters, and how they build an interconnected web with lots of fun dynamics (including developed family dynamics). People also like the number of queer and POC characters, the cozy vibe, the historical setting, the drama, and the ships (especially Herondaisy). The most common critiques all come back to the plot; that the main story is weak or even incoherent, and the series is stretched too thin across a number of side plots. People also dislike the lack of communication, and think that the characters don't feel like friends. Another complaint is that the world doesn't feel like a natural extension of TID, especially because the characters are so invested in mundane social structures like balls and reputations.

TEC is our first truly controversial series, and the main divide seems to be between people who think it's unnecessary fan service, and fans who feel serviced. The reasons I was given to like the series are the additional page time for Malec and the TMI gang, and that it fleshed out the TMI timeline. On the negative side, people say that it feels like a cash grab and that LBOTW didn't live up to the expectations set by RSOM. Overall though, the biggest reason that people ranked it so low was just that they hadn't read it.

Here's where we get into the series that were doomed to fail in the rankings because none of us have even read them. While TWP has a solid number of prospective fans ranking it in their top three, most people left it at the bottom because it hasn't come out yet. The people who expect to enjoy the series are the ones who enjoyed Dru, Kit, and Ty in TDA, and the ones who expect to dislike it are the ones who didn't enjoy those three in TDA.

So, TST was probably not fair to include in this list because I got a solid number of respondents who hadn't even heard of it, but I'm convinced that if it were ever to come out it would be in my top two series overall, and I want to see what the people think. While it didn't get anybody voting it #1 based on potential like TWP did, there were still some people saying that they would be excited to read it because of Waywood, the Luke/Jocelyn/Valentine drama, and the morally gray characters. On the other hand, there's the people who just don't care about the Circle and don't want to read about them.

For main girls, Tessa, Clary, and Emma were all pretty close in the average rankings. Cordelia and Dru fell a bit behind, but also had their share of committed fans.

When talking about Tessa, people brought up her intelligence, maturity, and their nostalgia for her character. They also like that she's a book lover, has cool powers, isn't annoying, starts out messy before maturing, and is strong-willed. By far though, the most common comment was that they found her relatable. The downside to this relatability is that her detractors say she feels like an obvious reader insert, and is overshadowed by more interesting characters like Will, Jem, and Jessamine.

Clary had the most positive comments, and people love that she's funny, creative, blunt, fearless, iconic, and handles all the bullshit the world throws at her. (My personal favorite comment was the person who called her "my beautiful unhinged princess"). More than anything though, people love Clary for her development. She starts out as a relatable 15-year-old, but over the course of six TMI books and all her later appearances, she grows into a hero. She's also of course incredibly nostalgic, since most TSC fans were introduced to the world by either her or Tessa. On the downside, people say that she works better as a side character than a protagonist, and that she's overshadowed by the rest of TMI. They also think that she made bad choices throughout the series, and find her annoying.

What people love about Emma is that she's strong, funny, complex, badass, and a bit of an asshole. They like that she's allowed to have an attitude and still be treated as a cool and compelling woman by the narrative and the other characters. Plus, she comes across as having a clear voice that makes her feel like somebody they could be friends with in real life. Most of the people with specific complaints about her either didn't like TDA overall, or thought she was treated as an extension of Julian who never fulfilled her individual potential. Some people also found her badass bad bitch persona to be more exhausting than endearing.

Cordelia is probably the most controversial character in this category, with long lists of both positive and negative traits given by the fandom. On the bright side, she's fierce, badass, kind, and relatable. People also like to see a woman of color thriving in 1903 London, and how she embodies the concept of a warrior. Looking to the negative, people largely just don't find her particularly engaging. They say that she's inconsistant, flat, and had no development after Chain of Gold. They also complained about her making bad decisions and having a weak relationship with Lucie.

Everybody had the least to say about Dru, and most people said that they ranked her last just because they don't know enough about her to like her more than the established characters. What her fans do enjoy is that she's relatable, blunt, sassy, and a fat goth girl who's giving 2015 tumblr emo. The only real complaint people had was that they found her annoying in TDA, but everyone who left comments like that also acknowledged that she was 13 in TDA and will probably be more engaging once TWP gives her time in the spotlight.

Moving into the main couples, TID continues to sweep as Herongraystairs takes the top spot (and came incredibly close to taking the entirety of the top three). After that, the couples are spaced out pretty equally and follow the same pattern established by the previous two categories.

Now, Herongraystairs received arguably the most bonkers majority in this entire survey. Nearly half of respondents ranked it as their #1, and only a couple outliers put it in their bottom three. What everybody loves about this ship is the angst, how willing they were to sacrifice for each other, the raw emotions, how perfectly the three balance each other, and the ideas about fate. They also like how all three of them are compelling characters on their own, have unique relationships in pairs (Wessa, Jessa, Heronstairs), and work even better as a complete unit. Will and Jem already loved each other, but they could only fully develop once they had Tessa; creating this tragic yet beautiful cloud of possibility. People also like the polyamorous aspect, and wish that they were a canon three way relationship. More than anything else though, what was commented again and again was simply "they loved each other so much." What else can you say? Well, I can say why a couple of people dislike the ship. The only reasons I was given was that the person didn't like TID overall, and that they prefer Jem and Will with a purely platonic parabatai bond.

Moving on to Wessa, people like their banter, the crazy build up to their relationship, and how they bonded over books. They also love how gutwrenching the relationship is, especially once you get to the epilogue of Clockwork Princess. The only complaint anybody had was that they aren't Herongraystairs, and the relationship is incomplete without Jem.

People of course love Clace for the nostalgia factor and how it's the relationship that introduced them to TSC, but most importantly people like how the two of them are just so horribly down bad for each other. They're cute, fun, and have good chemistry; forming the heart of the TMI gang and of the Shadowhunters world. What people don't like is that they're basic, getting overshadowed by other couples in their own series. The upside is that they get better in their appearances that came after TMI. There are of course also the people who don't like the incest plotline and felt uncomfortable reading about that era of their relationship.

Jessa was solidly in third for most of this survey, but Clace pulled ahead of them in the last day. Though they came in behind the other TID ships, they're still beloved by the fandom. People like their dynamic and enjoy Jem as a character. The downside is that the ship makes them sad because of the tragedy of their situation, doesn't include Will, and gets overused in the modern series.

As for Blackstairs, people see their relationship as beautiful, a good example of friends to lovers/forbidden romance, and worked in well with the plot of TDA. People also like the soulmate aspect. Their haters sure had a lot to say to counterbalance that though, and complained about how the relationship is melodramatic, overly intense, toxic, and codependant. I also got a few respondants who said that they just dislike Emma and Julian as individuals, and that Julian's behavior towards Emma is alarming.

Herondaisy is continuing TLH's grand tradition of coming in near the end while still maintaining a dedicated team of fans. The good stuff is how much James loved Cordelia, and that he spent so long unable to say anything, but once he was free from the Gracelet he never let her forget his devotion. Their love was powerful enough to break a hellish enchantment, but still felt like a friendship built on a shared interests like books and stories. The most common complaint about this relationship was miscommunication, dislike of James or Cordelia as characters, and not understanding why the two like each other (other than mutual attraction). There's also people who just don't like TLH and generally aren't invested in their story. The other main complaint was that the James/Grace and Cordelia/Matthew subplots felt unnecessary and overly drawn out (which of course connects back to the miscommunication issue).

Morgenthorn suffers from the same issue as the other TWP representatives, and largely got low marks because their books aren't out yet. Some people think they're shaping up to be iconic though, while others still aren't sold on the premise.

The side ships are where things start to really heat up. Based on their average rank, the pairs form a couple distinct tiers. First, is Malec, Sizzy, Thomastair, and Kitty (the fan favorites), next is Kierarktina, Chenry, Sophideon, and Gabrily making up the middle of the pack, then we have the less popular Haline, Gracetopher, Gwynburn, and Ghostwriter, and in dead last with by far the lowest score there's Arianna. (Sorry to the u-haul lesbians). I think it's quite interesting how most of the ships are clumped together with other ships from the same series.

I'm guessing we all knew that Malec was gonna come in first. People love the nostalgia factor, of course, and they also love how the ship is queer, iconic, and just generally sweet. It's a case of opposites attract where the two of them help each other grow and reach for things they never thought possible. Both Alec and Magnus believed that they'd never be truly loved for who they were, and yet together they were able to create a life and family. Not a single person had a bad thing to say about these two.

Continuing the popularity of the TMI gang, Sizzy came shockingly close to beating Malec for first. They didn't get as many #1 votes as the other top ships, but they were still voted highly by more or less everyone. On the surface this couple is cute and funny, but what people really love is how perfectly they match each other. While they look like opposites at first, they're actually incredibly well-balanced. Everyone expected Isabelle to break Simon's heart, but he's able to stand up to her without being a dick and he sees her for who she really is under all her defensiveness. Plus, they're great individual characters and encourage each other to grow. They only negative comment they got was one person who finds them annoying.

Next up, Thomastair comes in to prove that there are at least some parts of TLH that are pretty universally adored. People like how Thomas saw the good in Alastair from the start, and watching his schoolboy crush develop into a mature romance. They like how Thomas helped Alastair accept love into his life, and Alastair encouraged Thomas to become confident in himself. The two of them were able to create their own world in Paris, which allowed them to escape the roles they felt trapped in. The characters are of course loved as individuals, and people got especially attached to Alastair and think that he deserves good things. People also like their communication skills, in contrast with other TLH couples. The only real complains people had with the ship was that it's connected to a series they dislike overall, and falls into the bully x victim trope.

Kitty is another ship that anybody who spends any length of time in the fandom will not be surprised to see in the top quarter of this list. They're beloved as characters, and even people who dislike TDA say that they were some of the best stuff in it. Fans enjoy how Kit understood Ty from the start and Ty felt truly comfortable with Kit. They also like how Kit can't make amends with Ty but still keeps his secret (shout-out to the person who described them as being in "doomed yaoi purgatory"). People also say that they have great chemistry and a lot of potential. What people dislike is really just that they haven't had time to fully develop, since TWP hasn't actually come out yet.

The next top ship is Kierarktina, which is where we exit the "pure adoration" tier of this list. People like the characters and all their different dynamics, and think that there's a lot of potential for growth with them. They also like the fact that they're a canonically polyamorous ship. The complaints I got were that the relationship feels rushed, and that Cristina seems to fetishize Kieran and Mark's relationship.

Getting into the TID ships all nicely chunked together in the middle of this list, people like Chenry for their arranged marriage setup, where both of them love each other but saw their feelings as unrequited for years. They also like Charlotte and Henry's combined autistic swag. What makes people hesitate is their lack of pagetime.

For Sophideon, people of course love the individual characters, and especially appreciate how Gideon adores everything about Sophie. The only downside is how little of them we get on the page.

Gabrily came in lower than Sophideon but did receive more #1 votes and fewer #13 votes, proving that they have a higher number of committed fans despite being less popular overall. Those fans like how the two of them loved each other for what they were and always had each other's backs. Nobody had any negative comments about them.

Haline is another mid-tier ship that didn't get many comments. What I did hear is that people like how their struggles were worth it because they had each other, and ranked them low because of their lack of page time.

Gracetopher is probably the most controversial ship on this list. If we were just going off of who received the most #1 votes, they would be fifth overall (that order would be Malec, Kitty, Thomastair, Sizzy, Gracetopher). Unfortunately for them though, we are also factoring in all the people who ranked them dead last. As this form received more and more submissions, I watched this couple gradually climb from second-to-last to the dizzying height of fourth-to-last in the overall rankings. First off, what people like is how they truly see each other. Christopher was overlooked by his friends for his intensity and Grace was only ever treated as a weapon and a seductress, but they genuinely respect each other and bond over their shared enthusiasm for science. Looking at the negatives though, most people saw their dynamic as underdeveloped and unnecessary. Lots of people dislike Grace and don't believe that she should have received any redemption, and even people who are sympathetic towards Grace still dislike that Christopher was so quick to forgive her after how she treated one of his best friends. A few people also said that they like Grace and Christopher's dynamic when it's platonic, but ranked it low as a romance. People were also upset by Christopher's death, and feel that it ruins the relationship for them.

For Gwynburn, the only positive comment I got was a couple people saying they're cute, and the only negative one came from somebody who didn't like Diana because they felt she was an irresponsible guardian to the Blackthorn kids. Most people ranked them higher than the other ships at the bottom of this list, but unfortunately they just didn't have enough extremely high votes to pull them ahead.

Ghostwriter didn't get any specific positive propaganda, though some people clearly do enjoy them. Most of the negative sentiments came from people who just found them uninteresting and generally didn't enjoy TLH. They also see the pairing as having wasted potential, and felt frustrated by the lack of consequences for Jesse's resurrection. They saw Lucie as boring and dislike Jesse for his mistreatment of Grace.

Despite being ranked last, Arianna fans still came in to share what they liked about the couple. They enjoy the characters and Anna's butch swag, and some people who don't like them together still enjoy the concept. What people largely dislike about the two is Anna as a character, and how she treated Ari and all the other women she had flings with. While not everyone was ready to give up on them because of Anna's flaws, they were frustrated by how she didn't resolve her issues or try to be better by the end of the trilogy. There were also people who thought that the ship didn't get enough page time, or who didn't connect with Ari as a character. People were also disappointed in how Ari was punished by the narrative and by Anna for not being ready to come out of the closet when she was seventeen and dependent on her bigoted parents.

Oh boy, time to dig into the biggest category (which still feels incredibly cut down, my original list was over 50 characters). Side characters are obviously a point of hot debate, since everybody has their favorite guy who the narrative forgot about. The most popular overall characters were all old favorites introduced in TMI, then there's George, Catarina, Livvy, and Jessamine (who all swapped around a fair bit), before we get into a large chunk of characters who either inspire mixed feelings or get forgotten entirely, and bringing up the rear is two of the most hated characters in TSC.

First up, we have what I think is the biggest sweep of the whole survey; Raphael Santiago. He got about a third of the #1 votes, which isn't quite as dramatic a majority as Herongraystairs in their bracket, but far more impressive when you consider the sheer number of characters competing against Raphael for the top spot in this section. People think he's funny, iconic, and relatable. They love his sarcastic and grumpy sense of humor and his begrudging responsibility for the people around him. They also like his relationship with Magnus, as explored in "Saving Raphael Santiago" in The Bane Chronicles. The most common comment I got though was that people appreciate him being canonically aroace, and they remember him as their first experience seeing an aspec character in media. He received no negative comments (and few people left him out of their top ten).

Our second place goes to Lily, who got points for her iconic sense of humor, haunting backstory, and compelling relationships with both Alec and Raphael. She received no negative comments.

People like Maia but apparently don't have much to say about her. The only comments I got were that she's hot and a bad bitch, plus she overcame her difficult past.

Ragnor is appreciated how grouchy and melodramatic he is, and how he fits into the warlock friend group with Magnus and Catarina. I'd also like to shout-out his friendship with Raphael, since I love seeing them bond over their haterism. He received no negative comments.

George also didn't get many comments, but people grew attached to him very quickly and felt strongly affected by the tragedy of his death in TFSA, except for the person who said he felt like he got killed off for shock value.

People like Catarina's relationships with the other warlocks. I also want to point out her incredible selflessness and how she's even committed to helping people who hate her. She received no negative comments.

Livvy got the second most #1 votes after Raphael, and yet she's only #7 overall (ranked choice voting strikes again), and it looks to me like people either love her or don't care about her. What they love about her is the tragedy of her death and her relatable sense of responsibility towards her siblings, plus the continuation of her story in TWP. The only negative comment I got about her was from someone who didn't feel sad when she died.

Jessamine is seen as a fascinating and tragic character with a lot of potential depth who deserves more love. She got some low marks from her lack of page time though, and from people who found her attitude annoying.

Moving into some TST characters, Luke is noticeably higher than all the rest of his high school/fascist cult buddies. People like him for his dad vibes, and dislike him for his holier than thou attitude towards other members of the Circle. (Shout-out to my IRL friend who called him a DILF this morning).

Jocelyn didn't get many comments, and none that were positive. I'll chip in to say that I like how fierce and strong-willed she was when she decided to betray her abusive husband and raise Clary alone in NYC, and appreciate that she always tried to do what she thought would protect her daughter (even if it often wasn't actually what Clary wanted or needed). The people of the survey think she's a bad person and don't think that Clary should have forgiven her so easily for the way she lied to her. She moved up pretty far in the last day of this survey, but that was mostly due to other characters dropping in the rankings.

Maryse was behind Robert for most of the time this survey was gathering data, but her fans came in at the end to bump up her score. They like her relationships with her children, especially Jace and Alec, and are curious about her life before TMI when she had to deal with a loveless marriage and losing her brother to the mundane world. The only negative comment I received for her was someone who disliked how she treated Jace while he was being unfairly accused of working with Valentine.

While Eugenia is generally liked by TLH fans because she's funny, feisty, badass, and has a compelling relationship with Thomas; she scored fairly low overall because most people don't feel super attached to her due to her lack of page time.

The only positive comment I received about Jordan was that it was funny when he spent time with Jace and Simon. Mostly, people think that he was a toxic boyfriend to Maia and an awful person overall. They especially disliked that he and Maia got back together, even though he'd previously assaulted her after their breakup. Despite that, he's managed to make his way up from the bottom five of this list.

Robert is more controversial than his ex-wife, receiving more negative and more positive votes than her. People like his relationship with Michael as explored in "The Evil We Love," and how his personal issues with queerness bled into his relationship with his son. They enjoy both the angst of his difficult relationship with Alec, and the hopefulness that comes from his ability to grow as a person and try to be better for the sake of his kids. Folks who are less compelled by the angst just flat dislike him for his bad parenting. His ranking dropped dramatically in the last twelve hours, since I guess the people who can't forgive shitty parenting all showed up at the end.

People who like Jaime enjoy his attitude and see him as complex, and all the negative comments were about the age gap between him and Dru.

Michael is a character who seems to suffer from being nobody's favorite. No one had anything negative to say about him, but the only positive comments were in regards to his relationship with Robert, and the highest anybody ranked him was #4.

Amatis is somebody else who I believe suffered from not having any real fans. The only comment I got about her was that they ranked her low because they don't know much about her. The highest anybody ranked her was #6, and only one other character on this list has a highest rank that's lower than that. Nobody got mad at her like they did with Jordan or Jaime or Camille, but no one loves her like they love those three, so she ended up lower than them overall.

Camille got a fair number of high votes from people who enjoy her dramatic diva energy, and a lot of low ones from people who think she's just an awful person.

And here we have the first of the two most hated characters in this list. While he was dead last for almost an entire week, Nate finally managed to claw his way up to 19th place. Nobody had anything nice to say about him, and nobody ranked him higher than #7. I'll say that I find him interesting as an extension of Tessa's character and arc. People didn't have particularly complicated complaints, they just think that he's selfish, mean, awful, a traitor, a liar, an asshole, and completely irredeemable. Oof.

Even though he ended up in last place, Charles is distinct from the rest of the characters ranked this low because he actually does have a handful of fans who put him at #2 or #3. They think that he's an interesting character to study, even if he's an awful person. They also find his relationships with Alastair and Matthew to be compelling (though unhealthy) and relate to his place as an older sibling burdened by high expectations. As for the negatives, there's a whole laundry list. People see him as gross, annoying, selfish, awful, and boring. They hate his predatory relationship with Alastair in-universe, and which he was handled better by the author out of universe. I got one comment that said he felt like he was written by a straight woman, and in general people don't like how his arc was written.

Now that we're through with two of the largest and most controversial categories, let's move onto the one nobody cares about. I will admit that I included the children in this survey purely out of an interest in hearing if anybody had reasoning for preferring one small child over another.

Also, since we have two Max Lightwoods, I differentiated them using their middle inititals; Max M for Max Michael Lightwood-Bane, and Max J for Max Joseph Lightwood.

Okay, so what I have in the positive column for every single kid on this list is more or less just their association with their parents. People like the Lightwood-Bane siblings because they like Malec, they like Mina because of Jessa, Tavvy because of the TDA Blackthorns, Max J because of the TMI Lightwoods, Alex because of Gabrily, and Zachary because of Cordelia and Thomastair. Negative comments were also often linked to parents, like ranking Mina low because they dislike Jessa, or disliking the Lightwood-Banes because their existence feels like fanservice and they don't believe Alec would be a good father at age 20. Rafe did get the positive comment that his story in GotSM made the respondant cry.

Positive comments for Tavvy focused on people feeling like they know him better than other kids on this list, and being excited to see more of him and his relationship with Dru in TWP.

Max J got comments talking about how much more character he has compared to the babies, and how the tragic end to his story strongly affeced people. People got attached to him from his love of manga, and appreciate how he symbolized the innocence that Alec, Isabelle, and Jace needed to fight for.

Alex and Zachary were ranked last by almost everyone, though they all made it clear that they bear no ill will towards these kids. Zachary did get one committed fan who loves the way he brings Alastair's arc to a close, and is excited to see more of him on Thomastair's BiB story. I think it's noteworthy that they have the same number of #1 votes, Zachary got more #2 and #3 votes, and Alex got more #4 and #5 votes; showing that once you discount the people placing them in the bottom two, Zachary is in fact more popular. (I'm assuming that most people who put them in the bottom two don't actually prefer one over the other).

The villain category was particulary interesting to me, because reading everyone's comments made it clear that many of us are working off of different definitions of what makes a good villain. The biggest question was whether a character being sympathetic made people see them as a great villain or a terrible one. The other cool thing about this category is you can see that almost all the villains from the same series stayed next to each other in the ranking.

For as high as Sebastian ranked, he got relatively few comments. What people do like about him is that he was more relatable and redeemable than other villains because of how Valentine raised him, and yet he still went on to do unjustifiable things. They also think he was funny. The main complaint he got from several people was that the demon blood storyline made him a boring and badly constructed villain, since he had no free will in his own evilness. Also, y'know, the incest thing.

Valentine may not be ranked as highly as his son, but he did get far more specific compliments from people. They love to hate how logical, strategic, and pure evil he could be; as well as the way the story built up to him by showing the impact he had on the world. He was a skilled manipulator who convinced people to sacrifice everything in the name of his twisted values, and worked as a chillingly accurate representation of fascism. He also served the greater themes of TMI by allowing the leads to deny the violence and hatred passed down by their parents. Some people also just enjoy the Circle era characters. The only bad thing anyone said about him was that he's generic, one of a million bigoted middle aged white men in fiction.

Annabel and Malcom switched back and forth in the rankings a couple times while data was being gathered, since most people voted for the two of them as a unit. People like how tragic their storyline was, and how they served as foiled to Blackstairs because they too were people who loved each other enough to burn down the world. Ultimately, it was their sympathetic anti-Clave motivation that got most people to love them. The two points people held against them was that they're too sympathetic and thus not really villains, and that Annabel's potential was wasted in Queen of Air and Darkness. The folks who dislike TDA also dislike them on account of their association with the series.

Mortmain is our solidly mid tier villain. People across the board saw him as a simple pure evil force that the heroes had to win against, and the main question was whether people loved him or hated him for that simplicity.

The only reason anybody gave for enjoying Asmodeus was his association with Alec. The few negative comments he got were all about either his lack of page time or how his motivation being centered on his inherent evil made him uninteresting.

Shinyun is a more complicated character, and her reception was complicated as well. People like that she's associated with Alec through TEC, and that she showed how evil she was by rejecting redemption when it was offered to her. There were also some mixed feelings expressed about her place as a cult survivor, since that's a very human trauma that was not given enough dignity by the narrative. Negative opinions all came down to her lack of page time, and people who either never read or actively disliked TEC.

Benedict Lightwood might be the lowest anything from TID scored in this entire survey. People who enjoy him mentioned how he created realistic angst for Gideon and Gabriel, as a manipulative father they needed to learn to rebel against. What people think makes him a bad villain is that he's not a villain at all, just a generic shitty dad. Also, multiple people commented "worm" with no explanation.

Sadly for the villains of TLH, this isn't the way they were supposed to be the worst of the worst. While some people enjoyed Tatiana for her chaos and irredeemability, especially the way she abused her own daughter for years, overall she was seen as a boring letdown who could have been interesting if the narrative didn't treat her as pure evil. Maybe she could have had potential if she was allowed to be the main villain or if the story acknowledged the ways in which she felt abanoned by the Clave, but that's not the story we got.

As for Belial, nobody had anything positive to say about him. They thought that his plan was stupid (especially for a Prince of Hell), and that he was boring, annoying, and just generally underwhelming. He also received the same complaints as Asmodeus about how demons are uniniteresting villains because their only motive is their own inherent evil.

And here was have our final category: the side books! It's no surprise to me that the short story collections came in first, and that the unreleased books don't have a lot of fans yet.

Our most popular pick was Tales From the Shadowhunter Academy, which people love because of how it followed up on TMI storylines while also expanding upon the world. It gave readers a look into characters they enjoy like Alec, Mark, and James, and of course the most popular comment I got was people gushing about getting time with Simon. They love the Sizzy moments too, as well as Simon's friendship with Clary and the rest of the TMI gang. It also got points for George's heartbreaking death, and for how much fun it was to read when it was serialized in 2015. The two stories people mentioned as their favorites were "The Evil We Love" and "Nothing But Shadows," showing how people enjoyed getting to look at points in the TSC timeline that aren't explored by other series. The only negative comment it got was from a person who finds Simon and Isabelle annoying.

Coming in at a close second, Ghosts of the Shadow Market is beloved mainly for its connection to Jem and Jessa. People enjoy that it served a purpose in the overall TSC plot, and showed how love can be born of tragedy. The stories people brought up were "Every Exquisite Thing," "The Land I Lost," and especially "Cast Long Shadows." It received no negative comments.

While The Bane Chronicles was the least favorite of the anthologies, it still clearly won the love of the people. They enjoy it mainly on account of Magnus, especially for his friendship with the other warlocks and his romance with Alec. They like how funny it is, and feel like it has the same charm as the early TMI books. The only negative comment I got about it was that it's boring.

Secrets of Blackthorn Hall got points for the wholesome and iconic vibes, and the interesting format of being published through tumblr. Someone also described it as a home renovation show in a haunted house, and people brought up being glad to see characters like Mark and Mina and ships like Kitty and Blackstairs. Some people just didn't find it interesting though, and others disliked it because it had so much Julian and Blackstairs.

An Illustrated History of Notable Shadowhunters and Denizens of Downworld probably got the fewest comments in this category. The people who love it appreciate the stunning art and interesting details about the characters, and all the low votes came from people who haven't read it.

The Shadowhunter's Codex is the oldest companion book on this list, and clearly didn't hit like the later additions to the canon. The only positive comments I got were from people who enjoyed Simon, Clary, and Jace's comments written into the margins. Generally people just didn't find it interesting, and saw it as a textbook that didn't even provide new information about the the world of Shadowhunters. There were also people who either didn't read it or couldn't finish it.

Better in Black of course hasn't been released, but people are excited to see their favorite couples back in action. In this survey, I got specific comments from people talking about Herondaisy and Thomastair. It still ranked pretty low overall, mainly because none of us have read it yet.

A Sea Change was most people's bottom pick, just because it isn't out yet. (My theory is that it ranked lower than BiB because BiB got everyone hyped through fandom engagement when we all debated which couples would be included, and that BiB appeals to fans of ten different ships while ASC only has fuel for Matthew fans). Predictably, the people who expect to love ASC are the ones excited to see the next chapter of Matthew's journey.

And with that, we're done! I'd like to once again thank everybody who participated, especially the folks who gave long or detailed comments. I had to simplify and summarize a lot in this post, but I truly enjoyed reading everything you all had to say.

I also want to take some time at the end here to address some questions I got about why stuff in this poll was set up the way it was. First, I got a lot of people saying that Kitty should have been considered a main couple, either in addition to Morgenthorn or instead of them. I get that we (so far) have a lot more Kitty material and that most of the fanbase is far more invested in them, but I'm counting the "main couple" as the one that includes the main girl. I also got some people confused by my choice to include unpublished works like TWP and Seasons of Shadowhunters, and while I understand that perspective I still stand by my decision. I know it's not fair to the series and that people can't accurately rate things they haven't read, but I wasn't trying for that kind of accuracy; I was curious about how much people love or hate things that aren't out yet. I'd love to see how TWP and SoS factor into these rankings once we've all read them, but for now I'm happy just hearing what people expect to think about them.

Also, everyone who left random silly comments or told me their favorite characters and scenes, y'all are the real ones. I did this whole project out of my love for this series and my interest in learning why people think the way they do, and I've been amazed by the positive response. This series and world is so incredibly expansive, and I love that all of us are able to find the different niches of TSC that make us happy.

If you actually read through all this, you're awesome and thanks for supporting my passion for turning emotions into numbers. If anybody has any additional questions, I am here to chat!

Taglist:

@edwinspaynes @helenofblackthorns @whaliensdream @iovelaces @darcyolsson @sankta-wraith @magnus-the-maqnificent @blue-silver-hammer @ineedmoremalec @kingslayerzzzz @thevagabondexpress @cara0765 @uncertified-shadowhunter-14 @elytrianemrald @thomasslightwood @starrieshq @blackthornobsessed @alastaircarstairsismybff @angeldaisies @dissapointmentsrus @bananacakepie

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