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this is so well-written, i love it

[Deltarune Chapter 3/4 Spoilers (mostly 3)] In Which I Lose My Mind over Raise Up Your Bat

The Obvious

Okay, first off, let's establish the obvious. Lost Girl and Raise Up Your Bat's Chorus are the same song.

Go on, go look up Lost Girl. I think hearing the lyrics helps, so here's this Teto cover https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2XWzrtFlME and then try to listen to Lost Girl without singing along with the chorus. Impossible. Okay fine, here's Lost Girl too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P89rxnT7lKw. See, same song!

The Goal of This Post

Okay, great, we've established the obvious. This post further has to answer... why they're the same song. The further obvious answer, Raise Up Your Bat is about Dess (or technically Noelle, I guess, but it's Dess, come on). Okay, why is Raise Up Your Bat about Dess. How is Raise Up Your Bat about Dess.

Specifically to get there, we need answers to:

Who is "You"?

Who is "Me"?

What is the perspective character fighting, if we can even make a serious guess on that one?

As a secondary goal, we can look into why it references Don't Forget and what we can do with the Gaster Juice smeared all over Lost Girl that rubs off onto Raise Up Your Bat.

Okay great we're looking at the songs and how they connect, very cool and good A Stuffed Penguin In a Bowtie, but why? Well, there's two Knight theories that survived Chapter 4, so we're gonna talk about them and why this song is interesting for them.

Ralsei's Kidz Bop Version

It's gibberish. It's funny gibberish, but it's gibberish. We can talk about that some other time (I have interesting things to say about Ralsei's thought process going into it, but this just isn't the post to talk about the Kidz Bop version)

And the Mom is Kiss Goodnight is absolute fire though.

The Chorus

Okay here's the meat of the analysis. What's going on in that chorus. It's the part that is Lost Girl.

Lets hit this on three levels: Vibes, a deep look at each component trio of lines, and tying it back together.

Vibes

Okay so this is Don't Forget all jumbled up in there with Lost Girl. Right? Like that's what this chorus is trying to get across. You're supposed to think of Don't Forget. The singer is "with you in the dark" there's "a light inside your soul." It's Don't Forget.

It's a bit more active than Don't Forget. Don't Forget has vibes closer to "we're peacefully in the dark together" but Raise Up Your Bat is closer to "WE'RE IN THIS DARK AND WE'RE MAKING IT THE DARK'S PROBLEM" but the idea is the same. The singer is in the dark with the listener and that's Good for both of them.

On pure vibes, the first thought is that "Me" is Dess and "You" is Kris/The Soul, depending. Let's roll with that for now.

Deep Dive

Come follow me into the dark With your heart as the ark Which shall shine you the way

We're setting the stage here, this is the base case for what we're working with. Follow me into the dark, with your heart as the ark, which shall shine you the way. Your heart, presumably the Human Soul, is carrying you into the dark somehow, lighting the way through the darkness. This evokes images of a ship, an ark, sailing into the darkness.

Because I'm with you in the dark With your hеart as my mark Which shall guide you the way, through the wavеs

Wow look at blurry Suzie go

This is modifying what was established, the heart, while being the ark carrying you through the darkness, is not the only thing bringing you in. The singer's support is necessary to keep you safe as you go into the dark.

From there, Your Heart becomes "My Mark" that guides You the way (through the waves).

It's the speaker's mark, but it guides you. Somehow the speaker is connected to the heart in question, despite it being yours. It isn't saying that it's the speaker's mark to guide the speaker, but it's to guide you. The speaker knows where the speaker is going, but you don't, and somehow your heart allows the speaker to guide you.

The water imagery continues to be compounded on with the waves comment.

Come follow me into the dark With your heart as the ark Which shall shine you the way

We're repeating the initial case, reiterating that your heart will carry you through, but now the come follow me feels more direct. Your heart is not just carrying you through the waves but to your guide, you are truly following the speaker into the dark.

Because I'm with you in the dark With your hеart as my mark Which shall guide you the way, through the wavеs

And we finish off repeating the second set again, reinforcing the idea that the speaker is your guide through this ocean.

Summary

The chorus establishes that the listener:

Has a soul

Is in the dark

Is relying on the singer to traverse the dark

The singer is somehow causing the listener's soul to light the way to the singer

This... doesn't sound like Dess, right? Am I crazy? This sounds like Gaster. Dess simply is not with us in the dark, but who hecking knows if Gaster is. I think it's fairly reasonable to describe The Soul as Gaster's Mark. Kind of a fire description actually.

Pictured, Gaster preparing his Mark

The chorus is just as much a quote of Gaster's theme as Lost Girl because they're the same song. I keep saying this as if you know this, but surely you're not this deep into an analysis of a Deltarune song without seeing Andrew Cunningham's video about Gaster's Theme. If not, go watch that.

Okay great, thanks. Lost girl is covered in Gaster Juice. It's gross, even. Raise your Bat is the same way. Does the chorus... have to be about Dess? Well, yes, I think it does. But does Dess have to be the singer? Maybe not...

Let's keep this in mind as we move on to...

The Rest of the Song

This is the part of the song that tells us stuff. If the Chorus helps establish where we are and who we're working with, the rest of the song gets us to why we should care.

I don't think it's useful to go on vibes here, I think we gotta dive directly into...

The Line by Line

When the demon heart is crying

I got nothin', we gotta keep movin' on and swing back.

And the blood is gushing bright

This is getting us somewhere. There's a fight actively ongoing, blood is being spilled. Potentially from the aforementioned demon heart.

Raise up your bat for the burning fight

Great there's a fight, mo... wait a second. Your bat? The singer is instructing the Listener to Raise their bat. We know Dess's weapon of choice is a bat, so this is telling me the Listener is Dess. I was already guessing that earlier, but this is big points towards it.

When your hope is slowly dying And your future's lost its rights

The listener is losing this fight. It's clear to the listener that this is not a fight they're likely to win but they're fighting nonetheless.

Raise up your bat to face the fright

But the LISTENER is fighting nonetheless. The listener is determined to fight no matter what, even when defeat seems inevitable.

Let's knock 'em dead into the night

The speaker is now trying to give the listener hope. We can do this! We've got this! We can WIN, together!

And then the chorus

And then, once we've established the listener is in a desperate fight that's not going well, the speaker reminds the listener that they have support. They have the speaker's mark, they have their soul, their ark, to guide them through the darkness, this battle.

Back to the not-chorus

This is a repeat of the first verse. At this point we know the listener and the speaker are fighting together from the start. The fight looks tough, hope is dying, and the future's lost its rights, but we'll knock 'em dead into the night, together!

Summary

The speaker and the listener are allies in a fight against something. The "Demon Heart" which could be just about anything. It's probably not The Soul, since hearts in general are not seen as an opposing force. "Your heart" in the chorus is clearly marked as a good thing. There is some kind of battle, where the speaker is encouraging the listener, a wielder of a bat, to push through the odds and fight alongside them.

Oh right we had goals

Determining who is You and who is Me

Let's run through some combinations of speaker/listener to see who survives this pass. I won't accept any version where neither is Dess, but let's pretend for a moment, aye?

1. Dess Singing to Kris

The obvious first answer when you hear "your heart as the ark." The upshot here is that it's simple. It doesn't involve papa G, it immediately answers how Your Heart applies. The downsides? Why is Kris's soul Dess's mark? Maybe that's foreshadowing instead of nonsense, but it feels like nonsense right now. Why is Dess telling Kris to raise their bat? What? Kris uses a pencil, silly. A sword, maybe a shard of glass? Not a bat though. Maybe Dess is just refering to "raise up your bat" as a metaphor for raising any weapon because she wields a bat so all weapons are bats. Silly, unreasonable.

2. Gaster Singing to Kris

This explains the chorus really well. Big daddy G is with Kris in the dark, probably, they're following something he's planning. Kris is unquestionably Marked by Gaster with their heart. The issues? The bat! It's just impossible to get past the bat.

3. Dess singing to literally anyone other than Kris

This falls apart at the chorus. Okay maybe she's leading someone into the dark... but what? Why are we being told about this person's heart we know nothing about that has no connection to anything important we know about? If the literally anyone is Gaster, it gets even worse, Dess isn't leading our boy Winged Ding around. Same issues with Dess suggesting that someone else wield a bat.

4. Gaster Singing to Dess

This one is juicy. She's definitely in the dark. She's definitely either fighting (if Dess is the knight) or losing hope (if Dess is UNUSED) or maybe both (if Dess is... both).

If she's UNUSED? It's The Soul. We have to Find Her. The possession of the heart in this case is more metaphorical. It's her heart in the sense that it's a beacon she's using to escape the dark. What is the "fight" in the case of UNUSED? The metaphorical fight against despair. Keeping herself from going mad while waiting for us to Find Her. The fight isn't going well, remember, and this is a Rock Song, so it gets to be a bit dramatic about the metaphorical fight, make it a little more intense and demon-y than it is.

Even better? It's foreshadowing as to what happened to her. She lost. Remember, it's very clear that the fight is hopeless. We're going to find out that she went into the dark, led by a previous incarnation of The Soul, and she fought valiantly... but it was all in vain, and now she's lost to the darkness.

If she's the knight? Well, our bat is checked, our fighting is checked. The question becomes more along the lines of... where does all this heart business come in? An ark? Guiding her through the waves? No... that doesn't sound right... Maybe if she... no that doesn't make sense. Perhaps the song has been... twisted? Corrupted, almost? She's being led through the dark to fight the demons somehow... but she's fighting The Demon Heart... The Soul.

I'm really not on board here, but Dess Knight is one of the only two knight theories that survive the antlers, so like, we can't just throw it out immediately, can we? Let's swing back.

Now... the issues. This doesn't sound like Gaster, right? He's not being all mysterious and cryptic (okay maybe a little cryptic), he's singing, he's being actually supportive. This just... doesn't sound like our boy.

I counter... he didn't write this song. I don't know who did, but I know it wasn't him. He's just a character in it, the one represented by the singer.

What the heck are they fighting?

We've got some theories going now. It's a metaphor, it's a twisted reference to The Soul (that becomes more accurate on the Weird route), it's... we don't know. We're just not in a position to have good answers to this one yet. There's some frights, there's a demon heart... it's something. Deeply unclear.

We were gonna talk about Don't Forget and Gaster's Theme, too, right?

Gaster's got his juices all over this post now (disgusting), but I don't think I need to try to explain that any more.

Now... Don't Forget? We still have stuff to say about that. That one's still sung by Dess. She's repeating something told to her in her darkest moments, something that helped her hold on to hope, to keep going through it all. It's not being sung at the end of chapter 1, it's being sung in like... chapter 6ish probably? Whenever we Find Her but before we, like, save her.

The "Dess sings Don't Forget" was always the most compelling theory for it, and this just adds to that.

So like are you gonna mention findher.ogg or like what?

Yeah, I can do that. It's Lost Girl but different. Very cool. Replace every reference to Lost Girl in this post with findher.ogg and we're in the exact same place.

Okay, swing back to the knight you said you would

Okay fine. Heh, swing, like a bat.

Okay, so, we have two valid knight theories at this point. Caloween Carol (that's gonna take some getting used to) and Dess. Antlers, sword that could either be a bat or a katana, etc.

From discussions I've seen, you're either in the "It's obviously Carol, she's plotting something with Kris," the "Carol is a red herring, it's obviously Dess," or the "Carol is being set up to look like a red herring, but no she's actually it" camp.

I can't fit Dess being the knight into this... but I can fit Carol. Whatever happened with the "demon heart" whatever that is, Dess is lost now, and Carol is Hell Bent on getting her back, no matter what she needs to do or who she needs to hurt to get her. She knows about The Soul, she knows The Soul is the only one who can Find Her, and she knows that driving the prophecy forward is the only way to get The Soul into a position to actually do it, so she's taken up the title.

If Dess is the knight... what's she fighting? What's this business about demon hearts or losing hope? I don't know what Roaring Knight you fought if you think the Roaring Knight's hope is slowly dying or its future's lost its rights. Roaring Knight's got this. Certainly isn't interested in being guided through the dark with the help of a mysterious benefactor's mark.

No. Dess is UNUSED, we have to Find Her.

#deltarune #deltarune spoilers

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