#cause we only know what ralsei has told us and the legends

[movedtodykedvonte]

I don't care for Ralsei much as a character but I kinda hope the game doesn't go "he was evil all along" or was lying the whole time route. It feels like it'd be boring, but that could just be me

Ralsei isn't my fav either, that's more super sweet sensible characters are never my style less anything wrong with him contexually.

Still, I agree it would be a bummer if he turns out to have been lying the whole time or be malicious. I don't think deltarune's story is one that needs a twist/surprise villian or have the big bad be a person. A conflict or over arching concept? Yes, absolutely! But having a character, especially someone like Ralsei be the or just a concrete villian would ruin whatever the end is no matter what.

Personally I like playing with the idea that Ralsei is lying to us or at least leading us on, but not for any neferious reason, more so he's lonely and I like to think he doesn't really understand what's going on anymore than we, susie or kris do. His knowledge of the dark world is through the books he's read and not experience, I mean he was a prince with no subjects. I like to think he is the true dark prince as he does not turn to stone in the other dark worlds. He's just a little dummy whose to afraid of losing his like only friends to admit he's winging it.

[kaunaz]

aight i figure i should toss in my own Deltarune theory instead of just responding to someone else's. so let's talk about Ralsei.

this turned out to be a long-ass post, so get comfy.

so many people suspect Ralsei will turn out to have been Evil All Along, no doubt helped by his similarities to Flowey and possible connection to this universe's Asriel. he knows quite a lot about the mechanics of the Deltarune game, including how those tie into the player's keyboard. he keeps trying to ensure we follow a specific path through the Dark Worlds. he (previously) insisted on Kris being the absolute leader and submitting to them no matter what. and he clearly knows far more about the history of Dark Worlds, the nature of Dark Fountains, and the Light World itself than any other Darkner, and for some reason is very reluctant to tell us anything we don't absolutely need to know.

on one hand, i agree with the sentiment that Ralsei is hiding something Big. we haven't encountered any other "pure" Darkner (one born from the Grand Fountain), and he appears to have been alone for quite some time. he practically jumped at the chance to tell us the prophecy of the Three Heroes, but only told us about the Roaring out of desperation, and has yet to explain who or what the Titans or Angel's Heaven are.

but on the other... i can't agree that Ralsei's evil. for one, he definitely does NOT want to cause the Roaring, and i'm not budging on this. he wouldn't be having us seal the fountains if he wanted that. for two, while he's definitely a bit manipulative, the only goal i can glean from his more questionable behaviors is to keep us on track to seal the Fountains, without asking too many questions or becoming too violent. for three, having preconceived notions about how things should go isn't evil. when you spend so long waiting for something to happen, eventually you're going to build up an idea of what's going to happen, and it will inevitably happen differently than you're expecting. and it appears Ralsei has been waiting for this for a long time.

the previous paragraph assumes that Ralsei is telling the truth about the legend, the Roaring, and everything associated with it. if he's lying, that throws literally everything we've learned about Dark Worlds into question, and we end up with a scenario where literally anything is possible. if that's the case, i can't reasonably speculate on it because there'd be nothing to base my speculations on. so i'm going to continue assuming he's telling the truth.

what do i think is going on, you ask?

simple. Ralsei is trying to protect Kris and Susie to the furthest of his ability.

we know that Ralsei knew who Kris and Susie were before they arrived. and not only does he know the exact layout of the Light World, he understands its systems and culture well enough to know and agree that Kris and Susie should be doing their homework instead of slacking off in the Dark World. that tells me he's been watching the Light World for a long time, and probably knows things about Hometown that even Kris doesn't. he also knew exactly where the Cyber World was and how to get there, despite the library not being physically connected to the school. (how he got there isn't important - yet.)

with this level of insight into the Light World, i think it's reasonable to assume that Ralsei knows exactly who the Roaring Knight is.

remember that the Knight MUST be a Lightner, as Darkners are incapable of opening Fountains themselves. i'd have to replay Deltarune to be certain, but i don't think Ralsei ever brings up the Knight once. one would think that if he didn't know what was going on, he'd at least ask some questions about the Knight's identity. him saying nothing about it tells me that he knows much more than he's willing to let on.

i think Ralsei knowing who the Knight is would explain why he doesn't want to tell Kris and Susie more than they need to know. for all of his knowledge and apparent power, he cannot control what they do in the Light World. and if they were to know who the Knight is, there's a possibility that they would attempt to confront the Knight in the Light World, where they don't have any special powers or weapons. while the jury is still out as to whether or not the Knight is just as powerful in the Light World, they are clearly very good at manipulating Darkners, and it's likely they're good at manipulating Lightners too. and whatever they're trying to accomplish by opening Fountains, they are either 1) willing to risk destroying the world as we know it, 2) actively trying to destroy the world, or 3) unaware of the risks and maybe a bit insane. they are a dangerous person, and i understand why Ralsei would want us to avoid confronting them directly, at least without being as prepared as possible.

and since the Knight is so dangerous, i believe Ralsei is also trying to keep the Knight from figuring out who Kris and Susie are, or at least what they're doing. if the Knight knew who was going behind their back and sealing the Fountains, they'd probably go after the culprits in the Light World, and who knows what they'd be willing to do to achieve their goal. once again, Ralsei can't protect Kris and Susie outside of the Dark World, not directly. the best he can do is make sure they don't start the fight themselves.

come to think of it, that may be part of why Ralsei's obsessed with keeping Kris and Susie on track. the less time they spend in the Dark Worlds the Knight creates, the less time the Knight has to figure out who's missing from the Light World. perhaps the roles that Ralsei expects the party to have also play into this somehow? i'm not really sure on that one.

either way, i really don't think Ralsei's evil. while there are certainly better ways he could be handling the situation, at the end of the day, he just doesn't want Kris and Susie to get hurt. whether that's because he cares about them or solely because he needs them to stop the Roaring, it's too early to tell. all i'm saying is that i get why someone who knows THAT much about what's going on might want to keep some things a secret.

yes, i know i didn't talk about Ralsei not knowing exactly who he is, or why he talks about his identity as some sort of role he needs to fill, but that's beyond the scope of this theory. so is the fact that the prophecy was "foretold by time and space" and the possibility of connections to Gaster that raises. that's some weird shit, for sure, but i don't think it's relevant to deciding if he's evil or not.

[inbarfink]

Alrighty, here’s all of my Deltarune theories

1. Deltarune’s central theme\moral question will be something a long the lines of “The free will to do bad things versus the safety of not having the bad choices”. To put it in videogame terms (as Undertale was more concerned with meta-commentary about videogames than real-world implications) “Should a game give you the option to do the evil thing even though you should totally do the good thing?”. The world of Deltarune is... safer than Undertale’s, at least that’s how it looks like. You literally can’t do a Genocide run, you *have* to end your adventure in the Dark World as a ‘Hero’, you have to be good - no matter what you want. It’s safer, since there’s no chance of a Genocide-Timeline, but it’s... oppresively suffocating when you know you have no other option - and kinda creepy to think about the fact that even if you WANT to be a horrible human being, everyone is ignorant to it and thinks you’re a great hero anyway. The world of Deltarune is a world where *nobody* has a choice; the player is railroaded, Kris is controlled against their will, Ralsei argues we *have* to be heroes because of a prophecy, the Darkners were created for a ‘purpose’ so their Free Will might be kinda fucked. The “Pacifist” Ending to the Dark World segment feels like a rushed parody of an Undertale Pacifist Run, complete with going back and talking with all the monsters you befriended. But it feels... deeply unsatisfying because this “Happy Ending” was not caused by your hard choices, but because you just... did as you’re told. Plus, Kris and friends have caused no REAL change in the Dark World the way Frisk changed everything to the Monsters living in the Underground. Sure, there’s a new ruler in Card Kingdom - but the Darkners are still living hidden from Lightners without much hope of having “purpose” again. Meanwhile, in the Light World, the Monsters have lives that... fairly happy and safe - but not quite as happy as they could be in the Undertale True Pacifist Ending. There’s less relationships, less self-improvement, less people-choosing-who-they-want-to-be. No free will robs you of satisfaction and reaching your fullest potential, but on the other hand... is it worth it if it means someone (*eyes the Player*) will use that free will to do evil? Yeah, the Light World is not quite as happy as the True Pacfist Ending - but it is not the only ending Undertale has.

2. There are two main antagonist-forces in the story: The Angel’s Paradise, that force the Delta Warriors are destined to banish and whatever you wanna call the Queen and the Knight and ect. The Angel’s Paradise is responsible for ridding this word of choices, probably for that sort of ‘greater good’ of preventing people from making bad choices (Although, to be thematic, the Angel’s Paradise is also robbed of choice in some way). The Knight and the Queen and company wish to bring choices INTO this world, but like... in a bad way. By destroying and remaking it or something. They would be a metaphor for a frustrated-denied-Genocide-player. But they would also be potrayed sympathetically somewhat because, as mentioned - not having choices sucks.

3. Since the Angel seems to be the center of the religion of Hometown, I think Deltarune will be upping the JPRGness game of Undertale by having Kris literally fight against the God-Figure of their parent’s religion to restore free will to the universe.

4. The Angel’s Religion in the Light World would be very open about the fact that it’s all about personal choices being less important than safety. That’s why Toriel is so religious, valuing safety over freedom was always kinda her thing.

5. I do, at the very least, believe Toby Fox’s claims this is not a direct sequal to Undertale and it doesn’t effect the ending of Undertale that you got in any way. I espacially buy that last part. It’s VERY important to Undertale’s themes that all endings are equally “canon” and whatever one is real depends on the player’s choices and nothing else. I don’t think Toby wants to make either True Pacifist or Genocide or Post-Genocide Pacifist into the “Real Ending”. That hardly means it has to be a totally unrelated AU, however. My money right now is that we’re looking at a stealth prequal. The World of Deltarune is one without choices, by banishing the “Angel’s Paradise” and\or letting the Queen and the Knight destroy and remake the world - they create the world of Undertale, one where there are choices. Although the characters are fearful about existing their safe, railroaded world, they are hopeful this new world would be even better with choices. Although the ending is the “same”, it’s context would be different depending on what you did in Undertale. If you ended with True Pacifist ending, you have proven the hopes the Deltarune people had for the new world correct. If you did a Genocide run, then the Deltarune people just look like dupes and overidealistic fools and you have accidently proven the Angel’s Paradise totally correct about how nobody can be trusted with choices and you’re no better than the Queen whooops. 

6. Undertale tells us the original meaning of the Delta Rune symbol has been lost to time. I’m guessing that although the Underground interpeted as a prophecy of freedom - this was all just conjecture and coincidence on their part. The real meaning will be revealed in Delta Rune, it’s probably the Delta Warriors banishing the Angel’s Paradise (IE, the Undertale World’s creation myth, basically). Question is, why is one of the triangles upside down?

7. Not only do I think Sans might be originally from the Deltarune timeline (and aware of it), I think he might be a Darkner. Implications that Sans might not be originally from neither the Underground or the Surface, and that he might not be a proper Monster - are well-documented in the Undertale fandom (”You must really want to go home. Hey, I know the feeling, buddo.” “look. i gave up trying to go back a long time ago. and getting to the surface doesn't really appeal anymore, either.” The fact that he bleeds, can dodge attack and we don’t ACTUALLY see him turn to dust.) I just never took them super-seriously cause none of the purposed “solutions” made sense to me. Sans as a Darkner, though? Darkners are not originally from the Underground, Lancer’s dialouge implies they can bleed, and we don’t know what happens when *they* die. Not to mention, they can perfectly dodge attacks if they’re ‘On Guard’. ALSO, the most consistent difference between Monsters and Darkners? Monsters have Black-and-White dialouge icons, Darkners have them in full-color. But Sans (and Papyrus) have black-and-white faces. Darkners or Monsters, THEIR PROFILES WOULD LOOK THE SAME. That’s the sort of Hidden-in-Plain-Sight twist Toby Fox is into. Papyrus is almost certainly a Monster, he turns to dust when you kill him and everything. So that would mean Papyrus and Sans are not brothers by blood or something like that. Maybe Sans adopted that little Monster Skeleton Child as his “brother” to keep his Lightner disguise intact and ended up really honestly caring for the guy as his true bro.

8. Speaking of Papyrus? Something is very much up with him being one of the only Undertale Monsters you don’t get to meet. I support the speculation that he might have a radically different personality in that timeline, but also... Sans only mentions hanging out with his “Little Brother”, he never mentioned a name. Could it be that Sans’ brother is not Papyrus? At least not yet? I mean, we still don’t know where Gaster fits into this timeline.

9. I’m betting that Deltarune Asriel is... secretly a jerk. Mostly because: A. Ralsei is an obvious Flowey-Analogue and he’s as sweet as they come so what does that makes of the analoge for Flowey’s sweet alterego. B. Everyone is just so fucking praiseful of the guy some other shoe’s gotta drop C. Deltarune has some real ‘Monkey’s Paw’ vibes in regards to what people wanted out of Undertale 2 (Dark World = Just Undertale Again with Some Terms Switched and Upgraded Gameplay, Light World = Hanging Out with the Post-Pacifist Happy Ending Characters) it only make sense Toby Fox would want to fuck with our desire to see Asriel alive by making him such a radically different (and asshole) person. Kris’ gloomy and antisocial personality might be a result of being bullied by their big brother while nobody notices and assumes Asriel is Just Such a Nice Big Bro and Great and Hot. I’d be bitter too. They could have, like, a sequence that plays on our expecations of Asriel from Undertale. Where at first he comes in and seem as nice and sweet as that other Asriel and the player buys into it too (even though Kris was in a position where he would have recognized it as non-sincere) only for it to be NOOOPE he’s a jerk actually! Why did you fall for his trap Kris you’re the one person who knows how he REALLY is it’s almost like you’re mind-controlled or something? Thankfully, since Asriel was last in town, Kris aquired a new mean purple friend who likes eating faces and doesn’t like mean family members.

10. As for the OTHER Goatson, I don’t think Ralsei is like... secretly sinister or deciving Kris and Susie - but I also don’t think his worldview is as sweet and correct and right all the time. His issue is more... naivete, and being just a bit too comfortable with a lack of choice. (He honestly doesn’t seem to realize why Susie isn’t really into “Well, the prophecy says you’re a chosen one so you MUST be a hero and act nice and stuff). Although he means well, I think more will be called into question about his worldview other than the Pacifism. I am also... kinda expecting the twist that he might not be the Prince from the Dark. Again, not because he lied, but because he was... mistaken. (In the Legend of the Deltarune speia tone thing, the Monster and Human clearly look like Susie and Kris - but the Prince of the Dark only looks like Ralsei because he is wearing a cloak, which is not his default outfit. I feel like this might be relevant). He wanted it to be true cause then he’d get to go on an adventure and be a hero and have friends - so he just convinced himself it’s true. Would he be so okay with following prophecies when he finds out that, like, Lancer or whatever is who’s REALLY supposed to be a hero and friends with Susie and Kris?

11. Also that part about Darkners being made with a ‘purpose’, to ‘serve’ the Lightners... it REALLY creeps me out. Ralsei says Lancer feels good inside about being friends with Kris and Susie because he’s ‘fulfilling his purpose’... Is it possible that maybe all Darkners are just... a little too suggestible to friendship from Lightners? Like the friendship with Lancer seems pretty honest, but maybe all the ‘friendships’ we made with the Darkners we spared had less to do with us just being nice and more about us accidently overriding their free will??? Scary to think about, but it fits with the theme of Restrained for the Greater Good versus Free and Evil. It could also explain the King of Spades’ reaction to Lancer saying the Lightners are his friends, as far as the Spade King knew this was more Mind Control than actual friendship. Maybe the Spade King doesn’t think there’s any way to solve that dilemma but destory all the Lightners so that the Darkners won’t have to worry about that ‘purpose’ shit anymore? He thinks it might be the only way his people could have free will? (Also there’s a real theme here about rejecting railroading by becoming a villain; Spade King being a self-professed ‘Bad Guy’, Susie rejecting the role of the Hero to also become a Bad Guy, probably Kris at the end)

12. As for the ‘purpose’ for which Darkners were created. Well, to be meta, I think they were created to be NPCs for RPGames... sorta. I don’t think the game is gonna use the term outright, but they’ll word it like the Darkners were created to play villains and secondary roles in epic-fantasy-stories Lightners made happen inside their realm. That’s why the Dark World follows RPG Logic closer than the Underground (you can sell items in shops, for example), and why all the Darkners are themed after things like Chess and Checkers and Card Games and Plushies. They were made to be playthings, games. 

I think that’s it for my predictions to what’s gonna happen next in Deltarune, stay tuned to literally none of them being true in any way.

[recherche-raptor]

Deltarune theories & questions

I was late to the Undertale party & spoiled for everything when it came out, so I’m glad I get to experience discovering what’s going on at the same time as everyone else instead of just reading about it later!

Putting it all under the cut, it’s a lot and I don’t want to spoil for those who haven’t been able to go through it yet:

Was Ralsei’s parent one of the other three kings cast out by Spade King? I’d assume their parent was the King of Hearts, because of the heart symbol on their tunic. But if that is the case, why didn’t Ralsei react to seeing the kings in their cage? What is Ralsei truly the Prince of? What is their kingdom, if it’s not one of the four suites? Are they Prince of the entire dark world? And why do they say they’ve been waiting for the legend to come true the entire time?

For that matter, for the purposes of the prophecy, would Lancer count as a Prince of the Dark?

I noticed that Dark World characters had portraits with splashes of color (Ralsei’s green hat & red scarf, Lancer’s blueness, etc), but Kris, Susie, and the prologue/epilogue characters had black-and-white portraits as in Undertale. I wonder if there’s any significance to this?

This made me really curious about Rouxls at first, until I realized his mouth is blue

A lot of world elements felt a bit disjointed from Ralsei’s telling of the prophecy. Only Seam and Spade King seemed to care about the balance of light and dark (I haven’t fought Jevil yet but I will when I can! I’ll definitely be adding to this once I fight him, since I hear Seam has extra dialogue after fighting Jevil)

Why is Ralsei the only anagram/doppelganger counterpart to a Lightner? All of the other Darkeners are unique and not based in appearance and name on an Undertale character.

What does it mean that the teleportation doors look just like the door to Sans’s room?

Was it Gaster who took Kris and Susie to the Dark World, or another force entirely?

Who is the Knight that Spade King was afraid of?

What, exactly, were the consequences of the Fountain suddenly existing on the Dark World? All of the problems seem to be directly attributable to Spade King’s takeover and tyranny.

Why didn’t Kris, Susie, and Ralsei actually seal the Fountain like the legend said they were supposed to? Kris and Susie just used it to get home, Ralsei didn’t do anything with them, so what happened? Will the plot of Chapter 2 be “oh whoops we forgot to seal the Fountain away like we were supposed to, let’s go fix that now?”

Is the narrator from the survey/character creation part of the game the same narrator as the one who “discards” your creation?

What does it mean for Kris that you, the player, overwrites their save file when you first save? Is that the reason why Kris tears out their soul at the end- so you can’t control them anymore? Or did overwriting their save file remove something else that let Chara in, causing Chara to tear out Kris’s soul so it can’t be used as a cursor?

What happened once upon a time to humans and monsters in this new world? Were humans sealed away instead? Did the War even happen at all?

Is the strange bunker to the far south of the town the entrance to this world’s version of the Underground?

There were tombstones for Snowdrake’s mother, the dogs’ parents, and Shyren’s sister. What happened to Reaper Bird and the Memoryheads? Who were they?

Also this can’t be a prequel, because Gerson is dead, and it can’t be a sequel, because Kris, and Asriel being alive, and Undyne not knowing Alphys, so it has to be its own alternate world.

Is this the “next world” Chara wanted to move onto at the end of a No Mercy run? If so, does that mean that in-game, the world of Undertale was destroyed, so Chara could move onto Deltarune? What allowed them to possess Kris? I played Pacifist only and never reset, dangit, what is going on with this timeline?

What the heck did it mean that after leaving the Dark World, Kris and Susie found themselves in an abandoned classroom full of checkerboards, chess pieces, and a spilled deck of cards? What was real about the Dark World? What does this mean for Lancer and the rest, who we as an audience just spent hours getting attached to? Were they weird figments of a dream or hallucination produced by seeing the playing pieces? Only Susie’s comment that “that wasn’t a dream, right?” seems to keep it from actually being nothing more than a weird dream. Still, what’s up with that?

I’ve also seen analyses pointing to Susie as being the true central character of Deltarune, not Kris, since the player is told from the start that your choices don’t matter. But Susie’s seem to. She was the one to get character development, she was the one to have an emotional connection and investment with the struggle in the Dark World through Lancer in a fight that paralleled the fight with Toriel. And Kris, being a weird silent kid, doesn’t respond to her question. Could it be that the entire game was Susie’s dream?

Does Sans know anything about what’s up?

Is this the “next world” after Undertale, or might it be the world before? Is this the world with people about which Sans says “you’ll never see em again” as a Lost Soul? Or if is this indeed the world after Undertale, was there a world before?

Also what the heck did Asgore do to piss off Toriel in this world, he seems like a big ol softie, it was sad to see him living in such a sorry state while Toriel was in the big house they once shared that’s now all-too empty (also, Toriel’s chair was conspicuously clickable in the house, whereas its counterpart- presumably Asgore’s- was not clickable).

Where’s Grillby?

And who’s “C,” Asgore’s mysterious landlord? The only character I could think of with a name starting with “c” was Cattie, and that doesn’t seem right.

If Mettaton is still a ghost hiding in a house, where’s Napstablook? The writing in the journal in the library was in Napstablook’s style, but the snail house voice was Mettaton’s; do they just live together or something?

I’m sure I’ll come up with more questions later, but that’s all I have for now. More questions than answers, and a lot of fun and spooky possibilities.