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stainedglassthreads · 8 months

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Knight Alphys Master Theory

I acknowledge the popularity of and evidence for Knight Alvin and Knight Papyrus. But let's put them aside for a few moments.

Full lengthy of the theory will be kept below the cut, as it gets quite long, but have a quick banner.

The True and Neo Chaos

Let's begin with something interesting. There have been a couple of words showing themselves as fairly prominent amongst the Secret Bosses, that people have picked up on: those words being Neo and Chaos. Jevil references both, with his endlessly spouting about Chaos, and his including 'Neo' into a few of his attack names. Spamton also refers to his new body as 'Neo'. But the secret bosses are not the only area in the Dark World where these things are mentioned.

Spade King is, so far, the most ardent supporter of the Knight, and is incredibly excited by the concept of spreading darkness across the Light World. His battle theme is entitled 'Chaos King'. Queen also gets in on the fun--she talks a lot about a Neo Fountain, and explains how Determination, a trait found in all Lightners, is a vital component in the creation of both a Dark Fountain and a Neo Dark Fountain.

So, with King being the only one confirmed to have met, spoken with, and even received help from the Knight, and Queen having witnessed them make a fountain, it seems 'Chaos' and 'Neo' might be very important terms where the Knight is concerned, and that the Knight will also be linked with Determination.

You know who's linked with all three of these things in Undertale? Alphys.

"But Glass!" my hypothetical audience says in confusion. "That makes no sense! Alphys did the DT experiments, sure, but she's hardly particularly determined. And concepts of 'Neo' and 'Chaos' don't come up in Undertale at all, let alone in connection with Alphys of all people! Really if anyone was dt-connected and likely to show up in Deltarune, wouldn't it be Sans or Chara--"

Au contraire, dearest darling readers! As we all know, the term 'Neo' does show up once in Undertale, with a very blatant connection to Alphys!

As we all know, Mettaton Neo is Mettaton's original body, created by Alphys to allegedly be a human eradication robot, which the ghost Mettaton inhabits and fuses with. It's meant to be his 'ideal body', even if he doesn't really want to kill humans.

However, Mettaton Neo has links with a few other monsters, besides Alphys... Who also have interesting links with Alphys.

Now, if you'll notice, all three of these monsters have some interesting similarities.

All three have a normal form, and a significantly more powerful form you fight under special circumstances. Undyne, Mettaton, and Flowey all talk about protecting or killing both humans and monsters--and both Undyne and Flowey(before the Photoshop Flowey boss fight) use the words 'Humans. Monsters. Everyone,' before their respective fights. Undyne feels the powers of 'everyone's hearts beating as one,' and Asriel mentions something similar before using everyone's souls to break the Barrier.

Those are some similarities in terms of circumstances. But they also have a lot of similarities in terms of appearance. All have a prominent heart icon in their chest, huge shoulder spikes, and inverted sclera. Undyne and Mettaton very prominently have something weird going on with one eye. Mettaton and Asriel have very big and flashing wings, while Undyne and Asriel have big white gloves with more heart markings.

These three also have another, more subtle connection: all of them are connected to Alphys in some way, be it major or minor.

Mettaton Neo's body was built by Alphys. Undyne convinced Alphys not to commit suicide, and thought Alphys has many crushes, she's the crush who needs to reciprocate Alphys' feelings for Frisk to learn more about the Amalgamates, Flowey, and the Tapes, opening the way for Flowey's master plan and the True Pacifist Ending. And of course, Asriel was revived by Alphys, and she's the only one who realizes how bad things are about to get when Papyrus mentions a 'little flower' told him to gather everyone.

Wrapping this all up, while Mettaton's name in this form mentions Neo (with his theme also mentioning it), and Undyne and Asriel are blatantly linked to Determination, Asriel also has a very interesting hint at things: a number of his attacks use the word 'chaos' in their names. Notably Chaos Saber and Chaos Buster. He also has a strong connection to 'Hopes and Dreams', which both are mentioned occasionally in Deltarune, where the unique item 'Last Dream' is mentioned as being 'The goal of Determination'--and Gerson's memorial bench in Deltarune, as well as Alvin's dialogue, implies a connection between dreams and stories, which are also linked to darkness and dark worlds...

So, we have a big, nebulous connection between Neo, 'everyone's hearts beating as one', Chaos, Dreams, Darkness, stories, Determination, and maybe Alphys. What about it? What makes you so sure this really does make Alphys the Knight?

Oh, sweet reader. I'm nowhere near done yet.

Alternate Universes

Hey, you know who the only character in Undertale to canonically mention alternate universes is?

"Don't be silly, Glass, it's only the most popular theory for the person who interrupts the Goner Survey--Chara!"

Nope! Well, maybe. It's not impossible, but I'm not sure that that was really intended to be the reading of that line. Chara in concerned with efficiency, and there is no efficiency in doing the same thing over and over and over. Chara's Post-No Mercy monologue is a mirror of Flowey's Post-Pacifist monologue. In my opinion, Chara's 'let us erase this pointless world and move on to the next' is their equivalent to Flowey's 'let Frisk live their life' and Asriel's 'don't you have anything better to do?' Many take this line as meaning you should move on to a new timeline or to Deltarune, but I take it as you should play another game. ANY game.

But curiously, one person who specifically talks about alternate UNIVERSES, and not just 'other timelines' like Sans, is quite often overlooked.

Sans has done research on timelines, but has very little concrete information about them, to the point he mistakenly attributes Flowey's resets to a murderous Frisk. He also may or may not be from a different universe, but has yet to outright confirm this. Alphys has, allegedly, done actual research on Alternate Universes, and feels confident in asserting that they exist, and daydreaming that someone in one of them watches over her, and is cute and interesting, and she has a crush on this person.

Alphys can be just as meta as Flowey and Sans when the proper opportunity presents itself.

Gerson and Gaster

Gerson and Gaster have a bizarre relationship, which I won't get into right now. Suffice to say, though, people have certainly picked up that Gerson sort of fills UT Gaster's 'role' in Deltarune, being a recently passed away and highly admired mentor figure, who leaves big shoes for Alphys to fill.

Yes, Alphys, specifically. In Undertale, Alphys is noted as someone Asgore hired to replace Gaster, and one Gaster Follower notes that she has 'big shoes to fill'. It is also wondered if Alphys will meet the same fate as Gaster. Meanwhile, mirroring this, in Deltarune, Toriel recommends Alphys to replace Gerson as a teacher, and she still seems pretty anxious about living up to Toriel's expectations, going so far as to lie about how 'normal' Kris is doing in class. (While Kris silently stares at Alphys, a trash sphere perched upon their head.)

This point of Alphys in Deltarune being a teacher leads perfectly into...

Alphys Frequents Where the Knight Has Been

One of the biggest arguments against Kris being the Knight is focusing heavily on timelines, and how unlikely it is Kris would be able to be at the Library to create a Dark Fountain at the proper time, as it's implied that Noelle and Berdly had their books and notes out on a desk when the Dark Fountain was created, rather than them walking into a pre-existing Dark Fountain. @vgfm's wonderful Knight Alvin theory also relies somewhat on Alvin theoretically being familiar with both the School and the Library, due to his father previously working at the school(and himself possibly attending as a child) and Berdly mentioning a 'Ms Boom' working at the library.

But there's someone who we know, without a shadow of a doubt, certainly frequents BOTH these places. Alphys.

For the school...of COURSE Alphys can roam around the school without any suspicion! She's a teacher! It's even likely that she's the one who locked the door on Kris and Susie, back in Chapter 1. It would be trivial for her to tell the class that Susie and Kris have been gone an awful long time and that she's going to go check on them, only to panic and lock the door on them later, and tell the class she couldn't find them. It's also known that she regulars visits the Library, as a review of MMKC II all but stated to be left by her can be found and read. Additionally, Alphys is also the very first to mention the internet outage...

Interestingly, that review is something that gets analyzed a lot, too. Some think MMKC I is meant to represent Undertale and MMKC II is meant to represent Deltarune. Some think it represents Frisk and Kris, respectively, or even UT Papyrus and DR Papyrus.

Personally, I wonder if Deltarune Alphys preferring much darker and more complicated fiction is reflected by her being a darker and more antagonistic fiction in this game, rather than an ultimately mislead scientist who made a mistake, but learns to improve herself with the support of her friends...

Dr. Andonuts...?

One of Toby Fox's earliest games, as some of us know, is the Earthbound Halloween Hack. It is effectively a 'bad ending' of the game Earthbound, which heavily inspired Undertale later on. It explores some similar themes as his other games, albeit in a more clumsy and edgy way, because he was much younger when he made it. @under-lore has also made some interesting analyses regarding how Halloween Hack and Deltarune's alternative routes are handled, and what this might mean for Deltarune having only 'one ending'. It's got a few other similarities, too: like how much its protagonist, Varik, looks like an earlier version of Kris with a different color palette.

Knight in a modern setting, shadowed eyes, neutral expression...hm.

Oh, I've talked a little about Halloween Hack and Deltarune, but I haven't told you what Halloween Hack's actually ABOUT, have you? Well, it's pretty interesting. So, in the original Earthbound game, the character Dr Andonuts, who is a short and eccentric scientist type with an estranged relationship with his son, puts the hero, his son, and their friends into robot bodies so they can go to a different planet to defeat the big bad, at the cost of never being able to return, right? And in the original story, a miracle happens and they do somehow return home?

Well, in the Halloween Hack, that doesn't actually happen. Tormented with grief at having effectively killed his son and said son's friends, Dr Andonuts locks himself away in his lab, and Varik is sent to go find him, accidentally learning about his past and secrets on the way, and as he does Varik realizes that Andonuts is a heavily closeted queer man who struggled to suppress that side of himself--hey wait a second, why does this sound so much like a character Toby's written...more...recently... In a game that isn't Deltarune...

Speculation

So, I've done my best to bring up and organize a lot of evidence for Alphys being the Knight, both in terms of things actually present in UTDR, and in terms of parallels to other games Toby's worked on. In this section, I'm going to talk a little about my own feelings regarding this twist, how great I think it could be, and what it means for me.

Alphys and Toriel are, in my opinion, the two most overlooked characters in all of Undertale. While the lion's share of the attention goes to Sans, a lot of attention is devoted to Gaster, Papyrus, and sometimes Undyne, Grillby, and Muffet too. Not only do Toriel and Alphys often get overlooked, it feels like everyone significantly downplays Alphys' achievements, too. This video by @megaderping goes into a lot of detail about the ways Alphys is overlooked, and the really interesting facets about her character.

First of all, I think it would be really cool if Alphys' character were brought into the spotlight in this way. I think her being the Knight also explore and expands upon important facets of her character initially introduced in her Undertale appearance, where she indulges in escapism by pretending to be a human's ally, and ends up projecting onto Frisk.

Second of all, I just...feel like there so much potential for really touching scenes between her and Kris?

I don't think the secret bosses are the way they are because they met the Knight. But they do have a recurring theme everyone has caught onto by now: all of them are trash. All are based on items often discarded. First a Joker Card, which is rarely used in play. Next Spam Email, which is universally disliked and never read. And Mike is commonly thought to be a Microphone, possibly using a pun based off 'video killed the radio star'. I've also theorized that Roulxs Kaard, based off a Rules Card, might disappear halfway through Deltarune to become a Secret Boss in a future Dark World.

Alphys has something in common with these Secret Bosses. She thinks she's trash. And Kris also seems to a very low sense of self-esteem too. Spamton projects heavily onto them, and Kris is more shaken by watching Spamton's defeat than anything else. Several players have likened Kris removing their soul as feeling like an analogy to self-harm, it's been theorized that Kris is depressed and suffers dysphoria, and while Kris being an enemy we fight in some route in a popular theory, personally I feel that such a fight coming to pass will mean Kris is making a suicide attempt. Furthermore, Kris has formed an incredibly strong bond with a brash and excitable rulebreaker--much like the bond formed between Alphys and Undyne.

I just think there's a lot of really sweet potential for a future scene. One where, instead of the Knight being a villain Kris needs to kill, as in a classical fairy tale...the Knight sees herself reflected in Kris, and chooses to stop. Chooses to instead talk to Kris about how hard it all is. About how sometimes you feel like trash, and just want to throw yourself away. About how you're always living in some genius', some mentor's, some golden child's shadow. And you love them, and you miss them so much, but you can never be anyone else, aside from who you are in relation to them. About not feeling comfortable in your own body, about feeling awful and needing to watch as people grieve and you KNOW what happened to their lost loved one, but if you tell the truth you have to fear they'd hate you.

I just. Have a lot of feelings about Alphys and Kris bonding and helping each other. About two Knights seeing themselves reflected in the other. We don't have that with Alvin. We don't know enough about Papyrus to know if we'll have it with him. We sure as hell can't get that with Kris being the singular Knight.

So, what's up with Castle Town Fountain?

Okay, I lied. I also believe in Knight Alvin.

Specifically, I believe that Alvin will be a red herring, and it will later be revealed that he was the one who (possibly using his father's hammer) opened the Castle Town Fountain.

Fountains reflect the will of their creator. And the difference between Castle Town and every other fountain(as reflected in the difference between Ralsei and every other Darkner) makes me think that Castle Town Fountain either appeared naturally, or was created by a third Knight: Father Alvin.

It's not just the fact that he's related to Gerson that makes me think Father Alvin created the Castle Town Fountain, specifically. I feel I actually also have some small, but interesting, pieces of proof that Ralsei might be, instead of 'Kris' idealized self' or 'Kris' monstersona' or 'Kris' idealized vision of Asriel'... Father Alvin's idealized vision of Asriel.

Think about how Alvin has talked about Asriel:

-Father Alvin mentions Asriel was in the choir. Ralsei prominently sings lullabies to put enemies to sleep.

-We also know his view of Asriel is incredibly kind, sweet, naive, and is at times driven by guilt. Possibly something of a pushover. He imparts an anecdote where Asriel confessed something mean he had done in a video game out of curiosity, and confessed for Kris when they repeated the act to troll him...despite Father Alvin saying their religion has no concept of sin.

-Likewise, Ralsei is incredibly kind and sweet, perhaps to the point of naivety. He's so intent on pleasing Kris and doing as they say that he actually apologizes when Susie forces him to learn R-Actions, and has an incredibly powerful sense of right and wrong, repeatedly encouraging Kris to be kind and pacify enemies, even if he won't stop them from attacking Darkners.

It's not much evidence, but I do think Father Alvin being Ralsei's creator has some small potential.

Conclusion

I hope this theory has been, if nothing else, entertaining to read! I don't fault anyone else for still sticking with Alvin or Papyrus as Knight Candidates, I would honestly be happy to see either theory confirmed, and even if Alphys turns out to be the Knight, I'd love to see both given larger roles later on. But I'd like to throw some female candidates for Knight into the ring--and while Mayor Holiday and Dess have both been speculated, we just know so little about each of them right now. And as I said, I think Alphys is perfectly primed to further expand and explore themes Deltarune is already exploring a lot.

I would really love to see more discussion, and perhaps even fanart, based around Knight Alphys, though! Whether or not in turns out to be correct, I think it really adds to some overlooked aspects of Deltarune, such as the powers of Neo and Chaos, and perhaps Alphys' connection to Asriel!

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