#(eta people have mentioned the alarm clock and casino dialogue which excellent eye for detail)

[mirror-ralsei]

MINI THEORY: A Holiday Hero

It's no secret there's a lot of Deltarune stuff in Undertale. But one of the less explored avenues is the Undyne the Undying fight.

Having Delta Rune imagery on her armor is one thing, but there's a lot more to it: "The wind is howling," the ocean sounds and heartbeat in "But The Earth Refused To Die," the titular Earth mentioned again in "Heroine reformed by her own DETERMINATION to save Earth," even Undyne's interlaced phase-in which matches the Deltarune title.

But one thing that's interested me is a particular bit of music.

The first melody (brought to my attention by Patton-the-Zorua) starts at 0:00, and seems to be some sort of "NEO" motif, as it's used in "Power of NEO" and "BIG SHOT."

The second melody starts at 0:44, and is the "Ruins" melody.

But the third and most mysterious melody begins at 1:35.

As far as i'm aware, this melody stands out for a few reasons.

1: Subjectively, this motif is given a very striking solo, almost as if we're supposed to recognize it, in a similar way to the use of the "Determination" motif in "ASGORE."

2: Objectively, i'm pretty sure that the "snowflake-like" bullet pattern (see video above) cannot appear until this melody has begun to play, in a similar way to Asriel only using plain fire magic until the beat drop in "Hopes and Dreams."

3: To my knowledge, this melody does not appear anywhere else across the games.

This begs the question of what this melody is supposed to represent.

And in my opinion, one group of characters jumps to mind.

If we consider that this melody only appears for the first time in conjunction with these "snowflake-like" bullets, backed by an acoustic guitar harmony, and especially using sleigh bells as a very noticable percussion... i think it's worth considering if any of the Holidays are somehow connected to this fight.

Noelle and her mother are both associated with ice/snow and "cold." Dess is associated with an acoustic guitar. And all four of them could be associated with sleigh bells, particularly Noelle, who has them in "Girl Next Door" and "noelle.ogg". Does this motif belong to any of them?

Maybe it's a stretch. After all, there's no trace of the Holidays in the particular Undertale universe we visit, nor any reason we know of to explain why they'd be helping Undyne; and a new melody existing could be just that: a new melody specifically for this fight, unrelated to any other characters.

But there certainly seems to be more to the Undying the Undying fight than meets the eye, and it seems likely the answers lie in Deltarune. Could one of the Holidays be the missing link?