#theories and speculations

[ladybonheur]

Wait, is the trailer telling us that Neuvillette made an agreement with the previous Hydro Archon to observe humanity for a while and then be able to pass judgment on them and that is why he 1) is the Chief Justice of Fontaine and 2) tolerates Furina?? IS THAT IT?? And is that why everyone in Fontaine is born with "sin", because they are all in line waiting to be judged??

[cpd-55055]

how die the most people here know that Tracy would leave after Jesse left?

I think it was a mix of subtle hints and wishful thinking. For me the biggest thing that really made me wonder whether Tracy was leaving next season was her instagram posts, especially when she posted birthday posts for all her costars. She never posts for her costars birthdays. So to me, it felt like she was doing it one last time before she left the show. Another big thing was her lack of involvement in the show and promotions. After they wrapped up the Sean storyline, she was sidelined significantly. And I get that 10a had a heavy focus on Hailey, but it kind of reminded me of Jesse’s situation. 9a he was heavily focused on, and then 9b, nothing. Plus her lack of excitement for HER OWN EPISODE and THE FINALE, it was a big flag for me.

And there are more reasons why people started speculating. But these two were my biggest reasons why. And like I said, wishful thinking probably influenced people’s thoughts, especially after the mess of S10.

[twilightofthesandwiches]

The interesting thing is…. from the glimpses of SOUL-less Kris we saw in Chapter 1 + 2, it was notable how…. strangely they seemed to move. We saw them walking with a sort of zombie-like gait that maybe implied they weren’t in full control of their body still, or maybe just that they were in immense pain.

It led to a lot of people speculating that Kris does need a SOUL to some level. Maybe the SOUL is Kris’ but we’re a foreign entity that has taken it over, or that Kris’ original actual SOUL has been removed and replaced with us. If Kris needed the SOUL to live, that would explain their slow, deliberate movements and also why they keep putting us back inside despite clearly hating being under our control.

So now, with Chapter 4 giving us a much better glimpse of SOUL-less Kris doing stuff… it’s notable that they seem… fully capable of moving ‘normally’. Angrily, but normally.

Even when they do the whole Creepy Zombie Walk thing they are notably faster than they seemed to be in Chapters 1 + 2

They can do things that require fine motor skills, focus and swiftness like playing the piano, handling glasses, and beating the shit out of us with a hockey stick and it's all animated as smoothly as most other Deltarune Animations. Not really implying effort or stiffness the way that original Creepy Zombie Walk animation did.

And while Susie only gets a brief moment to interact with SOUL-less Kris in the Normal Route

Noelle has prolonged interactions with them in the Weird Route (both on-screen in Chapter 4 and off-screen in-between Chapters 2 and 3) and... while she does note that they sounded 'weak and shaky' and obviously their behavior seems weird on account of the whole 'traumatized by the Unkillable Evil Time-Demon only they can see" thing

... There's nothing to really indicate that there's anything outright unnatural or 'zombie-like' about the way Kris moves and interacts with her while SOUL-less. Since this is the Weird Route, Noelle even note this is the most natural and Kris-like they've acted in the last few days.... until we take over again.

And now we know they can go without the SOUL for a fairly prolonged period of time. The Ominous Phone Voice of Probably Carol does tells them they need the SOUL, it seems unclear why.

So… what that means for SOUL-less Kris’ behavior before? It’s possible that even if Kris can operate without a SOUL, it still hurts like hell. So right after tearing out the SOUL they are in Maximum Pain and it's hard to ignore, causing them to move in a struggling and slow manner. But the more they go without it, they kinda get used to it and the pain fades into the background - allowing them to do stuff more-or-less normally.

(Basically Kris has Chronic Pain but the only Painkiller that works for them is Demonic Possession)

…Or, knowing Kris, maybe this… was all an act. They were only behaving like This because they knew we were watching. It is pretty notable that they walk around normally in the Holidays' Kitchen while we're eavesdropping on them and only swap to the Creepy Walk Animation once they notice us....

Maybe this is an act, either to make us underestimate the things Kris could do SOUL-less… or because they’re a little teen Edgelord so they just enjoy playing up the whole Soulless Zombie thing when they have a chance.

[kaiserin-erzsebet]

One of the more frustrating things about the particular kind of anti-intellectualism directed at the humanities here and on places like tiktok is that pointing it out makes you seem like a killjoy.

No, I actually didn't find your "historians will say they were just friends" joke funny. No I don't think speculating that old photos are in black and white to make them seem older is harmless. But I seem uptight and "not fun" when I say these things.

[ghostie-goo]

welcome to the fog king 🙏

[unikhroma]

we need to talk about ramb [analysis/theory]

MASSIVE shoutout to my friend mycringefactory for ripping his sprites

ramb! he's the power strip darkner in chapter 3 that runs the stand in the green room and introduces you to the set of games that leads to the chapter's unusual secret boss.

weird attention to detail with his sprites, telling kris that he knows they want, dismissing their concerns that something might be up, having a page of the sweepstakes ARG named after him instead of the location it's showing, directly introducing kris to a rendition of the weird route and saying that it's "REAL fun".

seems like if it were some other character, these would be ringing more alarm bells. but i knew, i Knew there was something up with him. he is the secret boss, it's just not in a way we're used to. strap in, cause this is long as fuck <- not an exaggeration i've been writing this for the past three days.

ramb is the shadow mantle enemy.

ramb wants kris to have fun and enjoy the games he's provided! no he really wants kris to have fun and enjoy the games. he mentions it a lot, and keeps saying that he knows kris and what they want. in the context of a game about the weird route no less.

and all this is much like the shadow mantle enemy. it says outright that it thinks a part of kris isn't getting the shadow crystals because it'll get what they want, instead it's that they're just enjoying this, like ramb keeps saying is the case for them.

it wasn't there to stop kris: what it wanted was to see kris play, said plain as day. i believe the flickering red comment is about kris' eyes, that it wanted to see them really get into playing the game.

it's hard to believe that this is all just a parallel when it lines up So Closely. i feel like you don't just have two characters speak almost exactly the same and with such an emphasis on the same things, with the only difference being an accent in one of them. not to mention that there's an NPC tells you who ramb parallels.

can't find footage, but m-chromatic says this is from a pippins NPC

the shadow mantle enemy also further emphasizes its interest in kris having fun with a secret room in one of the games:

"Having fun?"

it feels like such a personalized message to them, and whether kris is having fun is something that ramb is very concerned with.

something particularly notable is what happens the first time you get proper dialogue from the mantle enemy. after the board is cleared, kris asks ramb about someone being backstage, and he denies it and says he's been there on security the whole time.

also i find it odd that the first line is one of the few times that expression of his shows up. in the second line he turns his head away in a smile

another thing:

and this bit might be a stretch but it's worth mentioning: the little creature that the mantle enemy turns into does happen to have floppy ears like ramb does.

once again shoutout to mycringefactory for ripping these sprites

alright, so ramb may have control of this game, probably from the wide variety of controllers in the backstage (though i have a personal theory that he can go into the game himself). but why do i think he has anything to do with the game itself? well, this ties into a sub-theory:

MANTLE/MANHOLE is a dragon blazers romhack made by ramb, and is what tenna unknowingly built his game off of.

in case you're wondering why i'm giving it two names. i personally think it's manhole cause it ties into other things

tenna's game vs the original game. "some big ol' blasted line from A to B" vs "the ORIGINAL game where YOU decide what to do". the parallel of regular route vs weird route is a lil on the nose. in this game, you're made to do a re-imagining of the weird route in chapter two and something beyond that. but the game wasn't always that.

the spamton sweepstakes is how we know this. the d_a_m_n_y_o_u_t_e_n_n_a page and noelle's icepalace_glaceir blog teases MANTLE/MANHOLE and ties it back to ramb. clicking the TV will change the screen to be static-filled (like the game cuts to when the controller isn't plugged in), and the lowest point of the page contains static squares, one leading to a neon blue screen and the other leading to ramb's page.

the neon blue screen (similar to the title screen of MANTLE/MANHOLE) can be scrolled up to show what looks like a representation of the ice area in the old game where you use the ice key. the door on the page leads to noelle's icepalace_glaceir blog, where she describes an oddity in dragon blazers that lines up perfectly with an area in the old game.

this cross area in the old game is accompanied by a track named GLACEIR. on noelle's blog, she writes that she's currently listening to a song from dragon blazers of the same name. it would make sense that if she's writing about that area and feeling nostalgic about it, she'd be listening to the song from it as well.

the choice of word for what her mood is.. i can't help but think of how that one weird ass expression of ramb's is called "nostalgic"

with all that in mind, i feel like it's pretty clear that that "old thing" tenna says he based his game on was intended to be dragon blazers. except that "original game" was clearly tampered with. it's not a coincidence that this game has a rendition of the weird route's beginning, it was put in there by someone. tenna is bothered by MANTLE/MANHOLE's contents as well:

another clue on the game being modified by ramb is, despite it being dragon blazers, the third board isn't a non-specific RPG location and is instead based on cyber world, specifically cyber city and queen's mansion's basement.

ramb originates from cyber world and while tenna may have known things about cyber city due to his connection with spamton, it's highly unlikely that he's seen the mansion basement, so it had to be ramb who modded it. ramb mentions people who live in queen's mansion like he knows them well.

another thing.. think about the names associated with him: his name is ramb. like RAMb. to put it simply, RAM is any data in a computing device that can change or be modified, and it's implied that he modded dragon blazers.

his name is misspelled as ROMb in-game and in the sweepstakes page regarding him and the old game. the track that plays in the S-rank room and thus when you speak to him about the game is called "Dump". to mod a ROM, you'd have to dump it from the hardware first (though i don't think that's necessarily what ramb did since we're in a fantasy world).

the dump thing is interesting to me also cause as mentioned before, the spamton sweepstakes has a page for ramb, but it was first accessed by clicking "[scrap heap]" in one of the prize descriptions. another allusion to him and trash... btw i feel like it's worth stressing: HE'S HAD A PAGE NAMED AFTER HIM THIS WHOLE TIME!!

oh and there's these two lines from him that absolutely implies that he had some kind of hand in the games backstage. the "HIS" would not be emphasized like that if the old game was impersonal to ramb.

so why is ramb like this?

why'd he want kris to play his fucked up snowgrave game so much? what's all this talk about fun? and then after all that, asking them if opening the fountain was that good of an idea... after all, doing so would cause him several darkners to turn to stone.

he's a power strip. like outlets, power strips can have a large variety of things connected to them: fans, chargers, TVs, video game consoles.. the key difference though, is that they can have multiple things connected to them at once and they're portable.

ramb shouldn't turn to stone because, unlike that zapper that turned to stone because its likely to be for catti's TV and isn't compatible with the dreemurr's, he's not bound by that kind of restriction. in fact there's a lot of uses he can have, multiple at once even. he's also directly relevant to TV world as being able to provide power to tenna himself.

but ultimately, in the same vein as tenna, he stopped being used. and getting kris to play these games, when his purpose is "letting you play your games", might've been a way to keep himself alive. "Without play... the knife grows dull." i think this line from him as the shadow mantle is also in reference to how without him being played, he'll turn to stone (grow dull).

i don't think this is just that side of himself being un-petrified because of the light. the light is enveloping him entirely, you can see it go well past him. i think he needed to be as close in proximity to the game as he could since it's tied to his purpose. more on this later.

selfish actions aside, i do think ramb cares about kris. but he was also suffering from being outcasted both socially and by lightners including them, so i think he was preparing for a fountain opening and the opportunity to convince kris into spending time with him again.

he was really done dirty by his fellow darkners man

he projects onto kris so much: he wants to have fun too. he misses those times. an opportunity to meet an old friend in the midst of loneliness and to relive those good memories he holds onto so much? well, he had to do something.

...and the something he did was steal the shadow mantle and create a fucked up game for this kid because he missed seeing them have fun and thought that all that fucked up shit was what they liked. (i think it's implied that kris plays video games in a bit of an aggressive way? unfortunately struggling to find specific scenes about it)

the thing about how he was already stone on the inside makes me wonder if that's a way of saying that he died inside a while ago and the loneliness broke him. part of me thinks he's intended to represent mentally ill people who fall through the cracks cause they don't "seem" like they are. this power strip needs therapy and medication man

the implications of him modifying the game to show the weird route in particular though... is he trying to encourage it? is it a warning? was learning about the weird route the thing that made him spiral and turn to doing this? it's very likely yes, since similar things happened to jevil and spamton.

how does he know about the weird route and what happened to him?

awesome first question: i don't know. it's possible that, because he's meant to parallel tenna, that he too was contacted by the knight, and they told him about it. however, it may not be that one-to-one. since spamton's forbidden knowledge came from someone outside of the in-game universe (we presume gaster), he could've gotten it from that.

and what's up with all the DEVICE_FRIEND appearances in his romhack? ..honestly can't explain it either. but since he depicts queen's mansion in it, i get the feeling that he's been down there and he saw it. maybe it's something that really stuck with him, or he had extended contact with it.

now as for his fate.. after the sword route is complete (meaning all three boards of his game are finished), the rabbick in the S-rank room expresses fear over something that happened with ramb.

so what the hell happened to him to freak this rabbick out so much?

most likely: he parallels tenna, so maybe he was also enlisted by the knight, and his job was to keep the shadow mantle out of kris' hands. because he failed to do so, he got taken or hurt by the knight as punishment.

less likely but more interesting to me: let's address the rabbick saying that kris already went past. we saw the pixel kris leave the backstage, so that seems to be what they saw. the pixel kris escaping the game may mean that the game will technically never be turned off, making it so that ramb is always being "used" and thus not fated to turn to stone while the fountain is still open

so the rabbick might've been frightened by a darkner that shouldn't be alive coming to life again (..thoough i have a theory that he might be able to shapeshift and that freaked them out but that's for another post)

either way, if you completed the sword route, ramb is somewhere else now. isn't that fun?

so! now with all of this information about him in mind: do you see why i'm insane about him. there's more evidence for some of my points (like ramb knowing you missed the ice key and having another creepy message for kris in a secret room) and evidence for potential counterpoints, but this post is so fucking long man.

thinking about exploring other things about him like his beef with tenna but we'll see. because this took a lot out of me LOL. anyway:

THANK YOU FOR READING!

oh and by the way, if there's a little man who doesn't fit with the other darkners telling kris to do some weird out-of-the-way shit and telling them that that's what they really want and he's talking about freedom, you should be asking questions

[egophiliac]

listen. people have always debated which character is the most normal guy but what if it has in fact been crowley the whole time. no string pulling no master plan just a guy who wants to keep his school running and is cursed with problematic students and incidents

honestly I think the funniest possible reveal would be one of two options:

ONE: Crowley has no plot relevance whatsoever. he wears the mask to cover his receding hairline. his darkest secret is the bottle of "medicinal" whiskey under his desk. this man can barely plan a PTA function with six months' advance notice, he doesn't have the time or patience for any kind of overarching master plot involving mutating students or whatever. the only thing wrong with him is that he's been running this school for (mumblemumble) years and, quite frankly, if you'd been putting up with NRC students for a couple of centuries, you'd have totally checked out by this point too.

OR

TWO: Crowley IS actually Raverne and HAS been slowly enacting a master gambit...to embezzle school funds. the overblots are still completely incidental. he has somehow less idea of what's going on than we do. we confront him about it and he's just like

[bwlkins]

There are two types of people in GO fandom waiting for S3: 

[luna--dragon]

Collected a bunch of evidence for... whatever this theory is called? Saw a bunch of people talking about it online and got bored, so I made these.

[ladybonheur]

I'm not the best at identifying voices, so I need to ask: was that Lyney asking "Wriothesley, where did you take my siblings"????

Are we gonna confront Lyney's greatest fears and help him??

Is that the smell of character development I feel???

[teambyler]

My video "A LAWYER'S EVIDENCE that Mike and Will become a romantic pair in Stranger Things" is out!

Many of you have followed me ( @teambyler ) or read my essays analyzing Byler (I've linked some of the most-shared ones below). I am actually also a LAWYER who has a YouTube channel called RONALD OFF THE RECORD, and I just released my big video on Byler! (I also have another YouTube channel with 45K subscribers that I mention in the video)

I'm prepared to put my professional reputation as a lawyer on the line to comment on a piece of science fiction, because goddammit this is important to me! It is not "delusional" to think Will and Mike will become a couple, and there is nothing wrong with you if want it to happen! This is a video essay I've been planning for at least SIX MONTHS, and I put a lot of work into it. Please share, and please leave comments. Enjoy! =D

0:00 Why this video 1:38 Hate for Byler on the internet 10:16 Case for Mileven 15:21 Case for Byler: Starting premises 17:56 If Will were a girl… 25:30 The evidence! 29:05 EXHIBIT A: The Snow Ball 31:34 B: Mike's reactions to El and Will being upset 34:21 C: Season 3 ending montage 39:16 D: Airport reunion 47:51 E: Rink-O-Mania argument 51:28 F: Heteronormativity, audience expectations 58:25 G: Throwing away the letter 59:55 H: 2nd heart-to-heart scene 1:05:43 I: Mike can't say he loves El 1:13:27 J: Platonic reunion 1:15:12 K: Will's role convincing Mike to say "I love you" 1:20:08 L: Effect of the "love confession" on El 1:39:54 M: The Painting Lie 1:43:22 Honorable mentions 1:45:27 Non-diegetic evidence 2:01:23 Actor statements 2:07:01 Season 5 information 2:10:34 NOT how you write an unrequited love story 2:16:07 Why Byler SHOULD happen (queerbaiting, etc.) 2:28:21 A more powerful story 2:35:45 A personal note

I'm now making this my new pinned post, so I'll list a few of my posts here for people to check out.

ADDITIONS: -28:00 On "We should normalize same-sex friends being affectionate, they don't have to be gay," I should have been clearer. HOMOPHOBIA is the reason for that stigma. Straight friends feeling like they can be affectionate in our society HAS to include normalizing LGBT+ people. -1:16:55 I should've said this more clearly: Will reminded Mike that who HE is, HIS unique qualities, make him worthy of love and make El love him, not dumb luck. And Will of course could convey that because Will loves the actual nerd MIke and everything he is. -1:17:06 Mike making El "not feel like a mistake" doesn't fit El, because she says that Mike looks at her "like I'm a monster, too". Nor did she "push you away because she was afraid of losing you". That's Will, not El. Mike felt love because Will was describing himself. -1:52:36 I forgot to mention that, in the original Nina opera, Nina's lover is ALIVE and DOES return. The Duffers changed the story so that Nina's lover does NOT return, to further suggest Mike won't return! -2:35:22 I'm kicking myself for not being more specific about Mike and Will being heroes in more than one way: I think the theme of bullying from s1 will return, with Will (and also Mike) having to face bullying for being boyfriends in Hawkins.

Some other @teambyler posts:

Mike was saying "I love you" to Will

Questions to ask if ever you have Byler doubt

How the Duffers have set Will up to have a happy ending in Season 5

The most heartbreaking way Byler can culminate (and how I predict it will) (I know this is less likely than an "escape from Camazotz" possession scenario, but I still want this to happen =D )

How the Duffers likely will make the general audience AWARE of Byler and CHEER for Byler

-teambyler

[crowleyholmes]

If this is not setting up a third shot in season 3 where they don't need a third person in the middle then idk maybe I should not have picked visual media analysis as one of the subjects for my art and film diploma final exam

[twilightofthesandwiches]

Hmmm… The Girl using a Sword rather an Axe seems like a smoking gun (smoking blade?) that she just can’t be Susie, but… I’ve been thinking about the Symbolism of most of the Swords in the Dark World being Writing implements…

A symbolism the game itself just pointed out.

There’s a potentially fun play here with swords already being the Weapon associated with an RPG’s main protagonists/player characters, and also the symbolism of holding a pencil/pen to show you’re the person with the agency to change the story and master your own fate. So it’s like equating being the “Main Hero” to being able to ‘write your own stories��.

Kris, the actual person holding the ‘Sword’ right now and presented on the surface as the ‘Main Character’ actually has a lot of problems with actual narrative agency. Some obvious (like our possession of them), some less so (being the only ‘Dark Hero’ who always ‘carries out fate’ and never 'faces' it.)

Susie is obviously the one most likely to resist the path laid out before her…

So I’m thinking about the concept of Susie deliberately picking up a Pencil/Sword to make herself the Girl from the Prophecy.

Like, she’ll literally declare her intention to re-write the story by arming herself with a ‘Writing Weapon’ while also deliberately writing herself into the Story with the same action. Making herself into the ‘Chosen One’ instead of accepting the ‘fact’ that she was not supposed to be chosen.

… Of course, that would have to be one hell of a Sword, cause it will also need to satisfy Susie’s aesthetic desire for Big Badass Weapons. Like, the literal reason she doesn’t use Swords right now is that she thinks Kris’ are too puny.

But… maybe she figures out how to craft her own Big-Ass Sword (befitting her status as a kinda-student of Gerson, who was also a Blacksmith) or figures out the mechanics of the Dark World enough to go inside with a Giant Novelty Pencil or something?

[johnwalkerrrrr]

John release Bob

Unleash Sentry

Called by the Void

1. Accidental Catalyst, Emotional Trigger

John accidentally opening the container that freed Bob puts him directly at the center of the Sentry/Void dynamic. And the way he snapped at Bob—harsh, emotional, raw—wasn’t just a plot beat. It mirrored the kind of intense psychological friction that often stirs the Sentry/Void within Bob. That kind of volatility woke something up. It wasn’t just external—it was psychic.

2. He Made Contact with the Void

Whether it was mental, emotional, or metaphysical, contact with the Void tends to consume. The fact that John emerged (even injured or shaken) hints that he has some kind of resistance—or worse, a tether. That could go either way: he could stabilize Bob… or get pulled deeper.

3. Thematic Resonance

John is someone who buries his trauma, who dissociates under pressure, who plays the role of the blunt weapon until he shatters. That mirrors Bob’s duality in a haunting way: Sentry vs. Void, golden light vs. total collapse. Their arcs reflect each other. So if anyone can reach Bob and remind him of who he is—and still be standing afterward—it’s John.

4. Potential Future Role

He doesn’t have to be a traditional mentor or handler. But he could become the only person who can get through to Bob when the lines blur. Like:

Bob loses control. The team panics. John walks into the chaos, and Sentry listens.

Or even scarier: when Void rises again, it’s John who sees it coming first.

John could absolutely be the one who ends up able to wake—or stabilize—Sentry in the future.