#tragic endings theories

[misstrashchan]

So. What's the opposite of a sacrifice?

With the final episode looming it's a question we've been turning in our heads, so I wanted to give my best guess/analysis as to what it might be before Jon and Muna come to tear our hearts out in the final episode.

This is the question Hayward asks Paige, and later Carpenter, and it seems to be the underlying thematic statement of the series, in response to Carpenter's exposition in the first episode of the Silt Verses that introduces us to the fundamentals of the world and system they live in:

CARPENTER:

A god must feed.

A god must be fed.

This is a fact agreed upon across every territory in the Peninsula. And so, really, the only difference between the people born to the water and the people born to the land...

...is the precise nature of the sacrifice we need to make.

There is a God for anything in their world as long as there is someone believing in it. But all Gods need human sacrifices. A god must feed. A god must be fed.

These simple rules have been used as fascinating and horrifying metaphors of our modern society, and to explore themes of faith and sacrifice throughout the story.

And so the final question the last season proposes is if we can find a way to make something better, that can exist outside of this ultimately unsustainable exploitative system and the harm it inflicts upon ourselves and the world, when it has come to define so much of the way we live and how we think. And that means figuring out the opposite of a sacrifice, if they want to kill the idea, the lie, that is at the heart of their world.

At first I thought the opposite of a sacrifice, of offering up to the gods, was about killing your gods. Starving them out. Refusing to offer up anything. And that is part of it, I think. I mean it's literally been a repeating mantra of multiple characters this season once they've reached they're breaking points. Violence in revolution as a tool to overthrow oppresive systems is sometimes needed and necessary. But what about after? What kind of future or vision for a better world can there be? There needs to be something at the heart of that movement that isn't just about violence against their opressors, because you then define yourself in relation to them.

This is even illustrated in the Many Below god Paige created having predator and prey emeshed together, a movement defined by their resistance against the predators of the world, the beasts, cannot seperate themselves to meaningfully create a better future that exists outside of that dichotomy. I think Hayward realises that even earlier in S2:

HAYWARD:

There’s a hare in the grass, half-buried and bloodied.

A barn owl has latched onto its back, its talons driving deep into the flesh of the hare.

Both animals are dead.

Familiar black stone veins protrude from the carcass of the victim, twisting like branches, driving upwards into the predator’s skin.

Hare and owl are locked together, inseparably.

The god must have struck just as the prey died.

White crocus is flowering up from the two entwined bodies.

(Unhappily)

And suddenly I begin to feel deeply afraid.

It all makes me think of a dormouse, dead in the dirt, its ribs showing. Of rabbits, teeth chattering, hungering from their cages

I kick dust up over the corpses. Nudge them aside into the long grass so they can’t be seen from the path.

Paige doesn’t need to know about this, I tell myself.

There’s no sense in worrying her. Not yet.

Which then makes sense why he's the one proposing the question of what the opposite of a sacrifice is to Paige (and Carpenter), for this very reason.

I think the answer is pretty simple and yet, like most simple truths in this world, it's forgotten and overlooked or twisted as naïve.

Preservation. The opposite of a sacrifice is preservation. To better explain this let me use an example:

If someone who cared about you tells you you're working too hard at your thankless job, sacrificing your sleep, your time, your personal relationships, your physical and mental wellbeing, far past the point considered sane, they'd tell you to stop. To make sure you take care of yourself. Instead of endlessly feeding yourself into a machine to justify your existence.

Applied to the world of the Silt Verses, it's not just self preservation and caring for yourself. It's about caring for, protecting, and preserving the lives of those around you, that is the ultimate act of rebellion and political warfare, the first steps forward towards a better world. Caring for humanity.

Whenever our characters reach a breaking point of turning against their gods, there's a common thread of wanting to save their fellow man, and realising the inadequacy of a god's ability to do that. Whether that's somebody close to them (like Faulkner and Paige):

Or humanity as a whole (VAL and Shrue):

SHRUE:

Use them, pass them on, do not forget the suffering that keeps the engines of this world turning, forget the name of your god and cherish the name of your neighbour that was swallowed up by it-

Cherish your neighbour. Be kinder to one another.

This can even go back to Carpenter's rejection of the Trawler-Man back in S1, her fury at the fact those she loved had been eaten (her family) and would continue to be eaten (Faulkner).

CARPENTER:

(Yelling to the river)

It's over between us, you twin mouthed prick!

Do you hear me?

Does that stir you from your torpor? Pry the barnacles loose from your sodden ears?

My father and mother were Gregory and Sandra Glass. My grandmother was Adalina Glass. My brother was Em.

They died for you.

Every single one of them died for you and they thought it meant something.

My name is Carpenter. And I am still alive!

I have loved you for so long. I have tried to know you for so, so much longer.

And I'm done with you. Here and now. I'm not laying down my life for you.

I'm not dying, do you hear?

The same breaking point for Faulkner at turning against his parish and finally snapping is the idea of Carpenter being offered as a sacrifice, an offering returned, begging for her to live.

I must clarify this is my own interpretation of the question and themes the story proposes. I'm

I'm not sure we'll actually get a hard answer so much as different characters offering their own answers and us as the audience encouraged to think for ourselves what it might be. I think this is what Hayward's answer might be at least, anyway, because like me he's a corny motherfucker:

If a sacrifice is the idea that the most meaningful and transformative thing you can do is to give up your life, your sense of self, to die, then the opposite of that would be to try to keep on living, and finding meaning and transformation in that, surely?

[spoopy-moose]

Thinking about how Mohg is quite literally Miquella’s perfect pick for a vessel to manipulate and cast aside. Thinking about how Mohg is the only one without faith, without love to guide him and yet yearned for it anyways, how both Morgott and Mohg’s character story includes love that is never returned, but they stayed loyal to that love anyways, hoping that one day they might be graced with a single glance their way. But the difference between morgott and Mohg is that morgott would’ve called him a traitor, but Mohg, well, he’s committing blasphemy already, but wouldn’t he want to see the stars again? To be bathed in light that isn’t the false skies of the eternal, buried city? And after all isn’t his dynasty, hidden underground again like mice an attempt at light?

[hexxter]

What if Luxu and Player encounter each other with each of the player’s reincarnation

Luxu who is stealing bodies vs the kid that keeps coming back to life

[silvergreenseraphim]

So about that part in Ever Crisis where Sephiroth tries to call Genesis, I used Google Translate to try and see the actual translation of the original Japanese script. "頼む･･････出てくれ•"

Google Translate translates it as "Please...please come out."

I looked up 頼む(tanomu) and it translates as "to ask; to beg; to request" and 出てくれ(dete kure) translates to "to appear or to come out."

Is Sephiroth literally begging for Genesis to reveal himself?

Aaaa!! Yes, he is! I actually hadn’t translated this bit yet, but yes that phrase is very…pleading.

"頼む･･････出てくれ•"

“Please…please come forth…”

The second part of the phrase does indeed mean to “come forth, reveal oneself.” Sephiroth is pleading for Genesis to appear out of…wherever he is. The tone is desperate.

So yes, it works in context with the phone-call. Sephiroth wants Genesis to show up on the other end.

Yet knowing the deeper context of the current events, and Genesis’ desertion, it is almost like Sephiroth is saying,

“Please…please come back…”

He is terrified for Genesis. This is one of the few times I have seen Sephiroth express genuine anxiety and desperation as an adult.

[greenerteacups]

oooh please someday tell us what you think of GOT

oh, no, it's my fatal weakness! it's [checks notes] literally just the bare modicum of temptation! okay you got me.

SO. in order to tell what's wrong with game of thrones you kind of have to have read the books, because the books are the reason the show goes off the rails. i actually blame the showrunners relatively little in proportion to GRRM for how bad the show was (which I'm not gonna rehash here because if you're interested in GOT in any capacity you've already seen that horse flogged to death). people debate when GOT "got bad" in terms of writing, but regardless of when you think it dropped off, everyone agrees the quality declined sharply in season 8, and to a certain extent, season 7. these are the seasons that are more or less entirely spun from whole cloth, because season 7 marks the beginning of what will, if we ever see it, be the Winds of Winter storyline. it's the first part that isn't based on a book by George R.R. Martin. it's said that he gave the showrunners plot outlines, but we don't know how detailed they were, or how much the writers diverged from the blueprint — and honestly, considering the cumulative changes made to the story by that point, some stark divergence would have been required. (there's a reason for this. i'll get there in a sec.)

so far, i'm not saying anything all that original. a lot of people recognized how bad the show got as soon as they ran out of Book to adapt. (I think it's kind of weird that they agreed to make a show about an unfinished series in the first place — did GRRM figure that this was his one shot at a really good HBO adaptation, and forego misgivings about his ability to write two full books in however many years it took to adapt? did he think they would wait for him? did he not care that the series would eventually spoil his magnum opus, which he's spent the last three decades of his life writing? perplexing.) but the more interesting question is why the show got bad once it ran out of Book, because in my mind, that's not a given. a lot of great shows depart from the books they were based on. fanfiction does exactly that, all the time! if you have good writers who understand the characters they're working with, departure means a different story, not a worse one. now, the natural reply would be to say that the writers of GOT just aren't good, or at least aren't good at the things that make for great television, and that's why they needed the books as a structure, but I don't think that's true or fair, either. books and television are very different things. the pacing of a book is totally different from the pacing of a television show, and even an episodic book like ASOIAF is going to need a lot of work before it's remotely watchable as a series. bad writers cannot make great series of television, regardless of how good their source material is. sure, they didn't invent the characters of tyrion lannister and daenerys targaryen, but they sure as hell understood story structure well enough to write a damn compelling season of TV about them!

so but then: what gives? i actually do think it's a problem with the books! the show starts out as very faithful to the early books (namely, A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings) to the point that most plotlines are copied beat-for-beat. the story is constructed a little differently, and it's definitely condensed, but the meat is still there. and not surprisingly, the early books in ASOIAF are very tightly written. for how long they are, you wouldn't expect it, but on every page of those books, the plot is racing. you can practically watch george trying to beat the fucking clock. and he does! useful context here is that he originally thought GOT was going to be a trilogy, and so the scope of most threads in the first book or two would have been much smaller. it also helps that the first three books are in some respects self-contained stories. the first book is a mystery, the second and third are espionage and war dramas — and they're kept tight in order to serve those respective plots.

the trouble begins with A Feast for Crows, and arguably A Storm of Swords, because GRRM starts multiplying plotlines and treating the series as a story, rather than each individual book. he also massively underestimated the number of pages it would take him to get through certain plot beats — an assumption whose foundation is unclear, because from a reader's standpoint, there is a fucke tonne of shit in Feast and Dance that's spurious. I'm not talking about Brienne's Riverlands storyline (which I adore thematically but speaking honestly should have been its own novella, not a part of Feast proper). I'm talking about whole chapters where Tyrion is sitting on his ass in the river, just talking to people. (will I eat crow about this if these pay off in hugely satisfying ways in Winds or Dream? oh, totally. my brothers, i will gorge myself on sweet sweet corvid. i will wear a dunce cap in the square, and gleefully, if these turn out to not have been wastes of time. the fact that i am writing this means i am willing to stake a non-negligible amount of pride on the prediction that that will not happen). I'm talking about scenes where the characters stare at each other and talk idly about things that have already happened while the author describes things we already have seen in excruciating detail. i'm talking about threads that, while forgivable in a different novel, are unforgivable in this one, because you are neglecting your main characters and their story. and don't tell me you think that a day-by-day account tyrion's river cruise is necessary to telling his story, because in the count of monte cristo, the main guy disappears for nine years and comes hurtling back into the story as a vengeful aristocrat! and while time jumps like that don't work for everything, they certainly do work if what you're talking about isn't a major story thread!

now put aside whether or not all these meandering, unconcluded threads are enjoyable to read (as, in fairness, they often are!). think about them as if you're a tv showrunner. these bad boys are your worst nightmare. because while you know the author put them in for a reason, you haven't read the conclusion to the arc, so you don't know what that reason is. and even if the author tells you in broad strokes how things are going to end for any particular character (and this is a big "if," because GRRM's whole style is that he lets plots "develop as he goes," so I'm not actually convinced that he does have endings written out for most major characters), that still doesn't help you get them from point A (meandering storyline) to point B (actual conclusion). oh, and by the way, you have under a year to write this full season of television, while GRRM has been thinking about how to end the books for at least 10. all of this means you have to basically call an audible on whether or not certain arcs are going to pay off, and, if they are, whether they make for good television, and hence are worth writing. and you have to do that for every. single. unfinished. story. in the books.

here's an example: in the books, Quentin Martell goes on a quest to marry Daenerys and gain a dragon. many chapters are spent detailing this quest. spoiler alert: he fails, and he gets charbroiled by dragons. GRRM includes this plot to set up the actions of House Martell in Winds, but the problem is that we don't know what House Martell does in Winds, because (see above) the book DNE. So, although we can reliably bet that the showrunners understand (1) Daenerys is coming to Westeros with her 3 fantasy nukes, and (2) at some point they're gonna have to deal with the invasion of frozombies from Canada, that DOESN'T mean they necessarily know exactly what's going to happen to Dorne, or House Martell. i mean, fuck! we don't even know if Martin knows what's going to happen to Dorne or House Martell, because he's said he's the kind of writer who doesn't set shit out beforehand! so for every "Cersei defaults on millions of dragons in loans from the notorious Bank of Nobody Fucks With Us, assumes this will have no repercussions for her reign or Westerosi politics in general" plotline — which might as well have a big glaring THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT stamp on top of the chapter heading — you have Arianne Martell trying to do a coup/parent trap switcheroo with Myrcella, or Euron the Goffick Antichrist, or Faegon Targaryen and JonCon preparing a Blackfyre restoration, or anything else that might pan out — but might not! And while that uncertainty about what's important to the "overall story" might be a realistic way of depicting human beings in a world ruled by chance and not Destiny, it makes for much better reading than viewing, because Game of Thrones as a fantasy television series was based on the first three books, which are much more traditional "there is a plot and main characters and you can generally tell who they are" kind of book. I see Feast and Dance as a kind of soft reboot for the series in this respect, because they recenter the story around a much larger cast and cast a much broader net in terms of which characters "deserve" narrative attention.

but if you're making a season of television, you can't do that, because you've already set up the basic premise and pacing of your story, and you can't suddenly pivot into a long-form tone poem about the horrors of war. so you have to cut something. but what are you gonna cut? bear in mind that you can't just Forget About Dorne, or the Iron Islands, or the Vale, or the North, or pretty much any region of the story, because it's all interconnected, but to fit in everything from the books would require pacing of the sort that no reasonable audience would ever tolerate. and bear in mind that the later books sprout a lot more of these baby-plots that could go somewhere, but also might end up being secondary or tertiary to the "main story," which, at the end of the day, is about dragons and ice zombies and the rot at the heart of the feudal power system glorified in classical fantasy. that's the story that you as the showrunner absolutely must give them an end to, and that's the story that should be your priority 1.

so you do a hack and slash job, and you mortar over whatever you cut out with storylines that you cook up yourself, but you can't go too far afield, because you still need all the characters more or less in place for the final showdown. so you pinch here and push credulity there, and you do your best to put the characters in more or less the same place they would have been if you kept the original, but on a shorter timeframe. and is it as good as the first seasons? of course not! because the material that you have is not suited to TV like the first seasons are. and not only that, but you are now working with source material that is actively fighting your attempt to constrain a linear and well-paced narrative on it. the text that you're working with changed structure when you weren't looking, and now you have to find some way to shanghai this new sprawling behemoth of a Thing into a television show. oh, and by the way, don't think that the (living) author of the source material will be any help with this, because even though he's got years of experience working in television writing, he doesn't actually know how all of these threads will tie together, which is possibly the reason that the next book has taken over 8 years (now 13 and counting) to write. oh and also, your showrunners are sick of this (in fairness, very difficult) job and they want to go write for star wars instead, so they've refused the extra time the studio offered them for pre-production and pushed through a bunch of first-draft scripts, creating a crunch culture of the type that spawns entirely avoidable mistakes, like, say, some poor set designer leaving a starbucks cup in frame.

anyway, that's what I think went wrong with game of thrones.

[bloodydeanwinchester]

i just dont understand how ANYONE could have watched the last two episodes of supernatural and thought that jack got a happy ending. like he is what three years old and he had to give up who he is his family everything to become god??? that ending was seriously sad and fucked up and in NO WAY a win for jack. so yeah the only explanation that makes that ending make any sense at all to me is if chuck really won.

[becauseimanicequeen]

Wild-ass 4 Minutes theory (that won't come true):

Great will get Tyme's heart (after he's shot), and the out-of-body experience Great is dealing with now is his chance to find out who killed Tyme and then deal with that when he wakes up from the transplantation.

[swans-chirping-in-the-distance]

Fate Is Inevitable

Fate,

It knew it was stronger than I.

You were a self-fulfilled prophecy,

But I couldn't let you die.

Is

Saving you a purposeless chase?

Did you know it was hopeless, my friend?

Did I miss that on your face?

Inevitable

Forces are destined to condemn.

I was supposed to stand by your side.

Now you will be lost to them

Because I couldn't save you

Because I should've saved you

Because I would've saved you

But I couldn't save you.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

hold on i need to get a thought and emotions out. so with Welcome Home, there seems to be a before and an after. obviously, we're in the after. the website is the after. and if it turns out that the story we see, the one where shit hits the fan and the show is practically erased, then... that already happened. whatever horrors we see, we'll know that there is no saving them. there is no happy ending - it happened, and it's tragic. the show is doomed to end and be scrubbed away. if any of the characters are revealed to be dead/gone by the website, then when/if we see them at an earlier point, we'll Know

and there's a special kind of dread and horror in that for us, the audience.

[yuseirra]

I'm so????

?????

No but Fatale really must be Kamiki and Aqua's song, I need the full song

There are two singers singing this op, what if that implies that it's the two boys that were the closest to Ai expressing their feelings towards her? Oh boy..; she really IS a fatale. She's got these boys hopelessly(in a literal sense) attached to her. I think there could be a reason why the op is a duet.

[midnight-in-town]

A tragic parallel between the F.O.L orphanage and Baron Kelvin’s workhouse

I wanted to point out that it’s interesting “the oldest siblings” of each group actually aren’t the ones getting their “fledging day” first. 

In fact, as we could see with this chapter, little Ginny who was scared of horses, something unbefitting of her aptitude as a Corgi, is the one who got a sudden “fledging day”. 

Thanks to this chapter, it’s also pretty obvious that “the oldest siblings” know where the other kids are sent, as indicated by Oliver’s and Artie’s scared reactions in this chapter.

The “oldest siblings” being aware of what’s going on also explains why Oliver sort of “protected” Daniel, when he conveyed to the adults that he didn’t fit in the Collie group. 

In other words, when the operation needs a kid (for blood or some other reason), it’s those who don’t fit in who get taken first so, Ginny aside, we should also definitely worry about Daniel but also Nick from the Pomeranian group.

Focusing a little bit on Artie, a Mastiff, who brought Daniel, a Collie, to his class and Oliver who interrupted Daniel talking about “fledging day”, it seems the “oldest siblings” are trying as hard as they can to protect the other kids from meeting a terrible fate. This also explains Theo’s helpful attitude with Ginny in the last chapter: 

However, despite Theo’s best efforts, the adults noticed that Ginny was not living up to her aptitudes as a Corgi and she’s now about to reach “fledging day”. ://

The “oldest siblings” also definitely know that Doll is probably the one who’s watching over the whole orphanage operation, as indicated by their reactions when Snake introduced himself as Doll’s acquaintance...

...And it’s very interesting, because I think it creates a parallel with Doll’s own situation, back when she was alive. 

After all, as a kid from Kelvin’s workhouse, when she joined Noah’s Ark, Doll began abducting kids with Joker and co to satisfy Kelvin’s madness but also to protect their younger siblings back at the orphanage. However, this was all for naught, as Kelvin had already killed those kids for his mad project, something our!Ciel discovered at the end of the arc.

At F.O.L orphanage, the “oldest siblings” act similarly: they were probably told the sad truth behind this orphanage and they have no other way but to go along with it in order to survive, which makes them accomplices, while still trying as hard as they can to protect many of their fellow “siblings” so that they won’t get to their “fledging day” too quickly. 

It’s tragic really and, since they think Snake and Finny are Doll’s friends, they probably won’t trust them to help. :/ 

The single silver ray of hope I have is that Theo reminds Finny of someone: could be either twins or it could be a kid from Finny’s own tragic past from that scientific lab in Germany and, in that case, if Theo can eventually trust Finny, then maybe Finny and Snake will learn the truth and help save all these kids.

It would also make a beautiful parallel with Theo reading Fenian cycle... 

...since our Finny is indeed stronger than many others and could definitely help saving them. 

TL;DR Doll probably pushed the “oldest siblings” into the same situation that she experienced when she was alive: become accomplices in order to survive but also to protect innocent children, which is exactly how she lost herself and died. Here’s to hoping that Snake (who wasn’t a part of Noah’s Ark abduction ring) and Finny (who’s very strong) will be able to realize the truth in time, in order to help these children. 

[catabasis]

i hope Fourteenth's regeneration is different from Tenth's and not as heartbreaking. whatever the reason for the Doctor to have Tenth's face again, it's likely tied to Donna; perhaps she somehow influenced the Doctor's regeneration and brought back a face she's familiar with because they're always destined to find each other, and because there's unfinished business between them, and if the Doctor manages to find a way to make everything right and allow Donna to keep her memories without killing her, that already would influence Fourteenth's final moments.

Tenth's regeneration was highly influenced by heartbreak. he lost everyone he loved, and he didn't want to leave because it didn't feel like the right time, because he wanted to do more. it was a tragic and untimely death for him and that's why it was so heartbreaking. Fourteenth is not Tenth, he's shaped by the experiences and memories of three other Doctors, and his regeneration will be influenced by that as well as whatever the circumstances are at the end of the specials. if (hopefully) the Doctor and Donna have a happier ending this time, he would have fulfilled his purpose, and he would be able to accept and embrace regeneration peacefully because he wouldn't be heartbroken as he was when he was Tenth. this time he's ready to go.

[systemerrorbonnie]

new theory: carla mcorkle and gideons mom are the same person

[the-unconquered-queen]

Currently thinking about how sad it would be for an elf MC to have a family with a non-elven LI. Like, it's bad enough that you'll outlive your partner, but your children, too? Because as half-elves, I'd assume their lifespans would be longer than regular humans' but still shorter than full elves'. Also, if MC takes on the job of helping Mal run the orphanage, they'll outlive those kids, too :(

[mirror-ralsei]

PREDICTIONS: Ralsei

or, why this pile of rock is going to tear my heart out

Ralsei is a Titan.

"The unending pillar of darkness that gives my body form" dedication in Ralsei's manual matches Ralsei's description of Titans "tak[ing] form from the FOUNTAINS"

Ralsei's body completely disappears when downed

Ralsei was first completely shadowy and amorphous within his hooded cloak, then a bit more defined but still shadowy under his hat, before finally settling on a more visible form at the end of Chapter 1

Just before removing his hat, for a couple of frames Ralsei's sprite changes his paw color from black to white. As well, where Ralsei previously had black paws in various animations such as clapping or spell use, they are now white in Chapter 2. These suggest that Ralsei's shadowy appearance is not simply caused by the shade from his hat.

Ralsei's initial description is a somewhat ambiguous "Dark-World being"

Unlike normal Darkners, Ralsei does not turn to stone and can seemingly teleport between Dark Worlds at will

Ralsei is the sole denizen of Castle Town, an area seemingly abandoned or evacuated, where Titan-like eye marks and darkness covers the land

Ralsei knows a lot about the Roaring

"Do not be alarmed... I am not your enemy." is one of Ralsei's first words to Kris and Susie

Ralsei wants to redeem himself for participating in the last Roaring by stopping it from happening again.

Again: Ralsei is the sole denizen of Castle Town, an area seemingly abandoned or evacuated, where Titan-like eye marks and darkness covers the land

Ralsei’s portrait/sprite when talking about the Roaring seems haunted

Ralsei says “I...I’m sorry!!! I repent!!!” in the generally foreshadowy Poppup dialogue

However, Ralsei is an unwitting pawn in a greater villain's scheme.

Ralsei is characterized as overly keen to follow orders.

Poppup dialogue: “Ralsei moved to click on an ad with a bunny on it teaching you how to make friends... ...and accidentally clicked on an ad of a machine gun that appeared over it!” / “Ralsei tried to click on an ad with a castle on it... ...but it was actually an ad for a company that demolishes buildings with bazookas!”

Again: Poppup dialogue: “I... I didn’t mean to do it... I... I’m sorry!!! I repent!!!”

In order to fix his mistakes or save the world, Ralsei may sacrifice himself, perhaps becoming the Waterfall statue in Undertale.

Undyne states "That statue's been here forever... No one knows where it came from." This description seems similar to Gerson's explanation of the Delta Rune: "That emblem actually predates written history. The original meaning has been lost to time..."

The statue is greyscale and cracked, like Darkners such as Lancer when turned to stone

The statue has horns, like Ralsei (note that the direction of Ralsei's horns varies across sprites/portraits and concept art, sometimes being turned inward and other times outward)

The statue is associated with the song "Memory," which is associated with Asriel, who appears connected to Ralsei

The statue in Waterfall may have been part of the original Royal Memorial Fountain before Mettaton's statue replaced it

If so: Ralsei is associated with all three concepts of a "Royal Memorial Fountain," being a prince who is made from a Dark Fountain and, as "memory" is a prevalent theme in Deltarune and Ralsei sings its "Don't Forget" motif in battle, with remembrance as well

Other things:

Ralsei appears self-aware in the same way as Jevil and others.

"(SAVE and take a break anytime you want, OK?)"

"Even if it's not real, you can still have fun, right?"

"It seems like it was just a corrupted program."

There may be multiple "Ralsei"s in some way.

“They [two Ralsei plushes] are both correct. Both beautiful.” (Toby Fox on Ch 1 Livestream)

“Every Ralsei is equally beautiful.” (Toby Fox on Ch 1 Livestream)

“I just wonder what... being “Ralsei-like” even is...?”

Unknown: why does Queen not notice Ralsei?

“How Thoughtful You Two Have Come To Help Me / Kris, Susie / Which One Of You Wants To Be The New Knight”

“Hey Was There A Third Guy?????????”

“I Will Miss Each Of You / Noelle, Your Un-needed Honesty / Susie, Your Foolish Bravery / Kris, Your Chill Vibes / ... / B...Burghley?”

Unknown: why does Ralsei (seemingly) know about the ThornRing?

"..." if given

(screenshots: 1 2)

DISCLAIMER: this is a predictions post, just laying out the predictions that i have currently and my personal reasoning. eg. i am by no means the first or only person to consider titan ralsei rofl