DELTARUNE and the Fourth Wall || THE DEVICE THEORY [PART 2: DEMO]
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- čas přidán 14. 06. 2024
- { WARNING: this video has several moments which contain flashing colors/lights/imagery and what have you. i believe all of the most warranted moments have warnings of their own that appear just before, but this is a blanket warning for the video itself and that if you are sensitive to such things, watch with caution. take it easy! }
a simple theory video about DELTARUNE, turned into an existential disaster of an analysis. join me as i seek to answer how DELTARUNE may be using the fourth wall to further its message, through examining how UNDERTALE did it, applying it to both demos of DELTARUNE so far, as well as making my best attempt at a character analysis of the Man HIMself along the way.
i promise you, there's a solid theory in here somewhere...
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Part 2 intro
0:46 III - DEMO
1:12:56 III.v - intermission
1:21:52 III - DEMO (cont.)
1:41:27 IV - SWEEPSTAKES
2:30:12 Part 2 outro
PART 1: • DELTARUNE and the Four...
PART 2: N/A
PART 3: { COMING EVENTUALLY }
UNDERTALE/DELTARUNE:
undertale.com
deltarune.com
FIND ME AT:
-other channel: @molly__m
-neocities: mollystars.neocities.org/
-twitter: / m0llystars
-tumblr: / m0llystars
-bandcamp: mollystars.bandcamp.com/
{ if you'd like to support my content more directly/financially going forward, both mollystars and otherwise, i also have a patreon! feel free to give it a look: / mollystars }
a particular thank you to:
my patrons
HalfBreadChaos
Andrew Cunningham and ACDS
Space Core
DELTARUNE/UNDERTALE Wikis
The Cutting Room Floor
DELTARUNE theorist community in general
and of course, viewers like you.
the list of music and sources i used actually exceeded the character limit for the description, so here's a link to it instead: files.catbox.moe/q1el8b.txt
HOWEVER, some of the songs and a video on there, particularly ones that use japanese characters, got all messed up, so here's a list of the ones with those characters in order of usage:
Oblique Occasions - 薄い氷の上 { ALTERED }
lolrust (.flow OST) - 兄妹/Siblings
lolrust (.flow OST) - 学校/School
-Deltarune Pacifist & Massacre play comparison (오로라 스튜디오 Aurora Studio)
Sally in 2D - スサノオ ( • スサノオ )
also, i actually have more videos that i wanted to put in the editor as cards but youtube only lets you put up to 5 of them at a time in any video. so here's the rest of the ones i either alluded to or mentioned i would be linking: files.catbox.moe/nvupd5.txt - Hry
![DELTARUNE and the Fourth Wall || THE DEVICE THEORY [PART 1: SURVEY_PROGRAM]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bSyaeIUrznQ/mqdefault.jpg)
![DELTARUNE and the Fourth Wall || THE DEVICE THEORY [PART 1: SURVEY_PROGRAM]](/img/tr.png)
![[ANALYSIS] The Backrooms EXPLAINED (Kane Pixels)](/img/n.gif)
{ CORRECTIONS / REVISIONS, WILL BE READING THESE ON THE FIRST RESPONSE STREAM FOR PT2 }
The Stuff I'm Most Likely Going To Mention In Part 3:
1. nothing to do with lore or anything, but rather the photo-sensitivity warnings in the video, in that i could've done a much better job with them! going forward, instead of how i did them in this video, i intend to stick to doing just one in the beginning of the video if it warrants it, using a blank/much less intensive background, plain white text, and also sticking with a more legible font for those sorts of warnings, along with a list of the timestamps that may be recommended to skip if one is photo-sensitive. apologies to those who had a hard time with the warnings in this video, i'll be sure to not make the same mistake next time with this!
2. in regards to the bit in the trash zone where susie says "hey that sounds like pretty useful information", that's actually rather out of context, as it's meant to more likely be a part of the bit in that room where trashy gives the same information about storage and recruits and the fun gang essentially just ignores/makes fun of trashy. so, in reality, that specific example may not actually mean all that much in regards to Weird Shit with ralsei, and i wouldn't put it up to as much of a standard in how notable it is, now having this additional context in mind.
3. this is sort of multiple in one point, but they all have to do with the weird route, so i'll group them all in here:
-queen being sad in castle town isn't necessarily exclusive to the weird route; this only happens if you don't recruit/"LOST" mauswheel, tasque manager, and werewerewire, or if in general, you make all ch 2 recruits LOST, which can happen on a normal route as well, obviously. this is just one of those things that happens to feel in line with the weird route tonally, but isn't necessarily mandatory for it to progress, and more so just exists on its own, regardless of what route you pick.
-there's actually a lot more stuff in the game's data that refers to a "Side B" than i initially thought! i'll likely touch on this more in detail when i mention it in the corrections segment for part 3, but there are more files and such in the game that refer to the alternate route as "Side B", there's not much more to it than that, its just something that pops up a lot more than i actually thought it did at first.
-there are...*a few* other potential allusions to the existence of the weird route in the game aside from what lancer says in the menu that one time. one of them is actually one of the LINE stickers from YEARS ago, well before chapter 2 had even released, where one of the stickers is noelle on the floor, looking horrified, and saying "that's not like you...", which could definitely fit very well with the weird route. although, i will play a bit of devil's advocate and say that even with the tone of that sticker, i feel like that alone couldn't have been nearly enough to be able to parse that the game was hiding something like the weird route in it, unless if you were really reaching, which back then, you didn't really have any choice but to reach that far, i'd say. another potential allusion is in the spamton fight actually, where if you fight him and deplete his health, he essentially just scolds you for going that way and just says that "YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE ALL THAT EARLIER!" so you could've gotten his "[Commemorative Ring]", alluding to the Thorn Ring that he gives you on the weird route. that is probably the closest the game gives to an actual hint about the weird route's existence honestly, but even then, it still is just vague enough that you wouldn't have been able to parse something like it going as far as it does.
4. regarding what kris could've said to susie in the blog post/their potential "history", or rather lack thereof: initially, i was kind of torn on whether or not they did have any prior history, but after getting some comments on this video and thinking on it a little more deeply, i've come to the conclusion that the more likely scenario is that this is just a case of how bullying just kind of Works in a dynamic like kris and susie's. i.e. they don't actually have any history with each other prior to hometown, but considering that susie clearly has a more troubled home life, and sees kris doing (seemingly/on the outside) much better off in that regard than her, with them having a mom like toriel, she likely would've just gotten extremely jealous of them, especially considering how kris tends to sleep through class and just act super reserved/shy. them being the quiet kid and also, in susie's mind, much more well off of a home life compared to her own, would leave her frustrated to the point of wanting to take her anger out on kris. i feel like this just fits a lot more reasonably and simply into the story so far, and would line up with how susie is the new girl at school in that blog post, and likely could've heard of toriel or would be surprised to have toriel recognize her because she, and the dreemurrs in general, seem like people that hometown in general thinks rather highly of. i imagine in susie's mind, knowing she clearly has some issues with her own family and how they perceive her, and how that affected her own self-esteem, it's like "really? you're like THE mom of hometown, why would you ever care to know anything about me".
as for what kris could've said to susie, i think a few of the interpretations i gave still fit, but other ones that i've thought of/have seen mentioned in the comments that could be really fitting are: them just saying "yeah.", or maybe something like "wanna hang out?", or even them just...smiling, or something. but these are just more thoughts i've seen from the comments that seemed pretty fitting with what we know of these characters so far. overall, i think this is one of those things that getting some extra opinions on definitely helped a lot with being able to narrow down the possibilities to find what makes the most sense, and something i'll want to touch on more in Part 3 when i Really put everything together in terms of how each main character plays into the bigger picture.
5. about the poem in some of the error handlers: i don't even really have much to add to this but i got an insane amount of comments from people saying that the poem likely could be referring to the appearance of the mysteryman sprite, or possibly even seam. truthfully, it's something i didn't give too much thought to, because i intend to limit my accounting for any data/files in the game being integrated into the actual Plot/meta-narrative to just the all caps files once i work on Part 3, but it does feel like a really fitting interpretation for that poem, although aside from that, i honestly don't know what else to parse from that. it's such an out of the way thing to add as an error handler, and alluding to the mysteryman again is definitely Nice and all, but it just makes me wonder...why exactly? just for the hell of it, or is there a deeper reason to it? and that's assuming that it even *is* alluding to the mysteryman in the first place, which, honestly i still think it's really anyone's guess because of how weird it is. i suppose it mentioning "the pain itself is reason why", and the other various mentions/allusions to "PAIN" in both games could have some part to play in this as well, but honestly this feels like something that i could either cover in a whole other video about the game, if not something that feels more up HBC's alley honestly lmao.
A Few Things I Might Also Mention In Part 3 But Not As Essential:
6. a few things about spamton: spamton does actually also mention player controls, technically. in his normal fight, he says "Press F1 For Help", which, when pressing it, actually does Help you by spawning a Tiny spamton that restores your health. i don't think he alludes to player controls in any instance aside from this though, and spamton does also mention HP at least once or twice in his battle dialogue, though i'd argue at this point that darkners in general seem to have a decent grasp of that concept. but him mentioning player controls is definitely worth noting at least here.
aside from that, there's also a few comments i got about kris kicking the NEO body after it appears to not function when you put in the loaded disk. i've seen several people interpret this as kris being genuinely frustrated about the disk seemingly not doing anything, and essentially kicking/hitting it out of actual anger, though it could also be that kris does this more so just to be Absolutely Sure that it's not really doing anything. sort of like "if i hit this CRT Television hard enough, maybe it'll stop acting fucking weird", yknow? but, i think it can work either way, imo JKLJKDGLH
7. very very small detail about the chapter select now working as its own "launcher app" essentially going into 3-5, to elaborate more on the whole "it could just be for optimization" angle, considering how fucking huge this game is going to end up being, i imagine that treating each chapter as its own separate game is going to/is likely already helping speed up the polishing and bugfixing part of the game by a fucking TON. like, had they been going with just making it all one game by itself, every single time they would need to update it, they'd have to essentially compile the ENTIRE game with EVERY chapter at once, even if only doing fixes for a specific chapter, which i imagine is much more tedious and resource-heavy. i think there's still plenty of room for this whole "launcher app" thing to take a more surreal turn in the meta side of things, but also it makes a lot of sense if they need it so that they can just compile one chapter at a time/a specific chapter for the purpose of playtesting and stomping out any bugs in the game; just a little additional thought about that
and finally, Stuff I Won't Mention Too Much Here, But May Be Worth Mentioning Elsewhere In Part 3:
-i realized in this video, i honestly didn't go too into detail about the twisted sword and the nature/concept of "aborted" weird routes, nor did i really mention the recruit system all too much, and darkners turning to stone, and what have you. i think while stuff like the elements is much more mechanically focused, and made sense to not focus too much on, there's definitely some stuff in the meta-narrative angle that could be scrounged up by discussing aborted weird routes and the recruit system/the nature of darkners either "not fitting" in certain worlds, or being taken to a "pure" dark world/castle town. i'm going to obviously save deeper discussion of this for Part 3, but i think that's really the one thing i could call more attention to that i'm surprised i never really mentioned in Part 2 whatsoever. then again, look at how long Part 2 was. can you really blame me? lol
{ i think that's all though, this *might* get stuff added to it later, but i think currently this is about as comprehensive as it gets for part 2's corrections/revisions ^^ }
Did I miss the 9/29 stream?!?!?!
aaaa im so excited for part 3 this stuff is the exact kind of deltarune content ive been waiting for since chapter 2 and its incredible and these first 2 parts have only mainly been going over stuff and discussing it somewhat but going full theory mode in part 3 is gonna be so fun eee thank you so much for having adsmuch deltarune brainrot as me /positive and I LOVE YOUR EDITING STYLE aaaa ok ‼️‼️
reading your number 3 correction made me realize sometthing holy shit
earlier in a comment i had thought there was a snowgrave reference in the spamton value network (while this isnt canon, it still is deltarune promotional)
and
i guess this is literally a one off thing and maybe could be coincidental and it likely isnt alluding to the snowgrave route butYOU KNOW im insane anyways
at 24:04 in the spamton sweepstakes the description says "commemorate your life with this ring" and i maybe remembered it as saying "commemorative ring" but i dunno lol
this likely means nothing at all its just me remembering what i was thinknig about like a month ago and basically finishing my thoughts LMOA
For what Kris said to Susie. How Susie described Toriel abandoning came off as projection to me and for Susie's head to be down, assuming what was conveyed made her feel defeated and to leave so quickly makes me think they said something personal about Susie that no one should really be able to know about. this is a bit of a strecth but i thought kris or potentially another entity over kris said something "just like your parent/someone personal" or something like that but also omnipotent. something quick but also scary to make Susie leave and reflect.
Gee, a 2 and a half hour video about Deltarune. Can't wait to watch this 14 times.
@@cornexpress i think you meant for this to be a normal comment
@@pitchvantablack7005 yes I did. lmao how did that end up in there
Literally me ❤
Very based human
Way too accurate, it's scary
interesting to note: spamtons strings are the same shade of green used in the pre-fountain-1-sealing save menu UI, and on the battle box.
1:33:30 You probably already got comments on this but, Queen doesn't always get upset at this ending. the Weird Route is locked in the moment you cast Snowgrave, so you can recruit Tasque Manager, Mauswheel, and Werewerewire if you want to, thus giving castle town new members and appeasing Queen.
Huh bread? Why didnt anyone see your comment??? Love your vids btw
I love it when breaks cooks (bakes)
To me susies line that "one day your mum is going to get sick of you" always felt like she was talking from experience. Adds to the fact that susie doesn't like going home.
It feels so weird hearing the before of deltarune. The drama in the school, kris acting more regularly, noelle's history with ice-e, it feels kind of... cozy in a way? Idk.
[[TOP TEN]] EPIC [Ye old] [[DELTARUNE]] TALES TO [[Fuel And Fire]] YOUR [Suspension of Disbelief]
i honestly feel the same, like. something about hometown as a setting, while it does feel Off, its like. unsettling but comfortable/cozy at the same time, the blog posts only kinda amplify that feeling for me...i'm more of a city kid than i was a suburbia kid but something about how toby's kind of established that tight-knit feeling with how everyone kind of has their own history with the town and the stuff within it scratches a narrative itch i dont get too often
I literally sent the links to my friend of more than 10 years whom I've known since elementary (or to some parts of the world it would be middle school) and I asked her to just "tell me". Nothing specific, just to tell me what she felt or thought about it. She did mention the "XD" part which is exactly what I was referring to. Noelle's way of writing is so so similar to how my friend used to write back in 2012 or so, it's so cute, so wholesome and super nostalgic. I think the last part fits the topic as well.
@@manslaughter3180 holy shit i literaly flop every time i see someone use XD, i even tried to start using it once like in mid 2022 and it didnt rlly work out (i forgor). The way of chatting back in the early/mid 2010s was special.
@@m0llystars i felt very cozy in hometown and hearing you and others read the blogs. I reminisce of my childhood and how kind of similar it was to Kris's and hometown's past. And yes hometown feels off, i agree (mostly bc of you know what), but it feels a lot less eerie to me bc i grew up in a place like hometown.
If our reaction to individual deltarune chapters spreads to this extent even now-
Literally how are we going to handle 3 dropping at the same time?
the theorists will DIE. like they will keel over and turn into DUST
Chaos, Chaos. That’s what it’ll be.
Well I know I'll die for at least 3 seconds for sure lol
not necessarily. i think the long time between each chapter contribute to that atmosphere of intense theorising as so much is still lin the dark. The theorising might not be as extreme with 3 full chapters to dissect as the story will have been cleared up quite a bit at that point.
Hyperfixation overload
It occurs to me that, since Toby knows for a fact that people will data mine Deltarune, the only way for him to keep things secret is to add a bunch of red herrings into the code so that the fans don't know WHICH mysterious variable or spooky sprite is important.
which just makes us think EVERYTHING is important and we end up sounding absolutely insane. toby is really just perpetually trolling us
Its a smart solution to the issue of datamining leaks
To me it's crazy how Toby can code a simple menu in the most complicated way possible
That's the power of when someone who doesn't know how to code pushes his way up to produce something functional anyway haha
You are filled with the power of 3am determination
Green being a color associated with meta stuff could be a very (very) interesting theory if you consider the character most associated with the color green thus far
GASP! Luigi!
Supa luigi in real life....
Why are you talking about Luigi? They're obviously implying Bulbasaur has something to do with it
so uh...who could this be? lol no one is giving real answers
Its obviously Luigi since it's pretty heavily implied that Mario will the be the secret boss of Chapter 5
In relation to the blogpost with the Kris and Susie story: I’ve always felt like Susie’s specific hostility towards Kris is a result of her being envious of their relationship with their mother. We’ve gotten lots of clues that indicate Susie may have a rough home life, the specifics of that are kinda up in the air. Regardless, I think that whatever Kris said, it might be in relation to that.
Thats what I imagine, too. Kris saying something like “Good,” or implying that they hope their mom gets sick of them, or that their family is too good for them. Susie’s bullying usually brought up Kris’s parents.
Yeah, the whoel rant about kris and their mother during spamton sweepstakes has a vibe of "why couldn`t i be in your place" or "you dont deserve her"
Another excellent guess at what Kris said that I saw was "You're crying." Because Susie may have gotten so caught up in projecting, she let Kris' cool demeanor get to her.
Susie being jealous of Kris for their relationship with Toriel is also really ironic, because as I see it, Deltarune Toriel is *strongly* implied to be a less than ideal mother to Kris, to put it mildly. In fact, given that Susie mentioned Toriel in the apple story right before Kris said whatever made her run away, I wouldn't be surprised if whatever they were saying directly related to their relationship with Toriel. Possibly unsettling Susie by somehow shattering her idyllic view of Kris' and Toriel's relationship.
About the whole yellow soul thing. It's worth noting kris does still have their phone in the dark world and it's frisk's phone that turns their soul yellow. Plus spamton in general draws a lot of attention to phones
The phone link is a pretty significant thing to note as a connecting line between these things, yes! :O That could still fit the 'Divine Intervention' theory too - because Gaster's, uh, influence seems to be in Kris's phone in the dark worlds...so maybe he sent a signal to the Soul *from* Kris's phone to activate Yellow Mode?
The _vibes,_ Molly, the _VIBES!_ The tone and presentation of this is so nice, content aside even. This was a very pleasant video to sink an evening into. I know we've talked about this before, but I'll reiterate one more time how happy I am that you're really following up on the whole "Gaster as creepypasta" angle, and really doing it justice. It's been a loose thread that I just barely started picking up on in the sweepstakes, made a small stab at articulating in my own Gaster's theme video (thanks for the shoutout btw), and now it's so vindicating to see you properly dive into it and present it as a Real Thing that will have Significant Ramifications to the game's narrative moving forward. Seeing this angle explored personally gives me a lot of renewed interest in Deltarune overall... but that's just the video's intermission lol.
I think at this point I can see pretty clearly where the device theory proper is going, but I wasn't expecting it to turn into quite so much of an all-encompassing God Theory. The breadth of evidence you've included here is kind of staggering, to the point where segments of this video work pretty well as just summaries of the entire game. It's very nice to have it all compiled in such a nice format, but it makes me very curious to how it's all going to end up tying it. If, that is, the goal is actually to tie everything in and you haven't just been breaking off on some tangents to, y'know... just analyze shit for fun I guess. Even then, I can appreciate that too.
YEA again thank you so much wtf!! i'm really happy to hear you enjoyed it so much, i can't be thankful enough for it being a pleasant/comfy thing for people to sink their teeth into while we wait for The New Stuff ^^
for the intermission, it's 100% one of those things that just, again when you first talked abt it to me it was completely spur of the moment and i'm really glad i added it in because it seems to have resonated with a lot of people other than myself, which is really nice to see JKLDGHJKL it's an angle i want to be able to delve even more into with part 3 once i feel ready to tackle the editing of it proper but that'll be a decent ways from now
i do think the device theory ultimately is going to be very overarching and covering a Lot of shit, but at the end of the day it is also an honest attempt at me trying to parse what Gaster even is or what his motivations actually are to the story. it just so happens that because he seems to be so central to the game, i also feel the need to address many other characters, mechanics, and the such because it all ultimately will tie back to TDT, and thus, to Gaster. i do absolutely intend to find some way to tie everything together, how good i end up doing on that will simply be for time to tell, but god damn if i don't give it my best shot at this point JKLDHJKLH if i can make a good enough conclusion about what Gaster truly represents, what he means for the narrative and meta stuff, his motivations, and also the reason for the distinction between the player and Kris, and can make sense of what exactly is most diegetic to the game and Why that is, then idk if i'll Solve deltarune, but i'll at least be able to put it to rest and say that i got as close as i reasonably could to that. it's a fucking massive theory for sure, but one that i think i have enough of a foundation for that i may as well cover as much ground as i can with it, so we'll see how it goes in...X amount of months from now JKLDGHJKL
@@m0llystars Thinking about it for a second, it makes sense that as soon as you start considering Gaster to be _the_ meta character of Deltarune in the same what that Flowey was the meta character of Undertale, any attempt to figure him out would inevitably amount to a Theory of Everything. It shouldn't be that surprising. And yeah, trying to "solve" Deltarune after 2 chapters is something I've always considered kind of a hopeless task, but I'd put money on you being the closest of anyone at the moment.
To avoid exclusively gushing, I guess I'll say that basically the only point in here that I don't agree with is Susie knowing Kris in the past. Sure it works as _an_ explanation for that one particular interaction, but it seems strange to lean into that so hard when Susie knowing Kris pre-Hometown doesn't line up at all with the impression I got from any of their on-screen interactions in chapter 1. Susie never references any past events she shared with Kris, or any knowledge of them personally outside of being someone she shares a class with, recognizes as an obvious misfit, and habitually picks on. Even down to details like Susie being surprised by how slowly Kris walks, nothing about how Susie acts around Kris indicates any kind of familiarity, let alone a friendship, so she'd basically have to be... intentionally pretending not to Know Kris for the sake of obfuscating that part of the story and... y'know it would all be very contrived. That's aside from just the logistical awkwardness of Kris and Susie happening to drift into this small town from the same place, years apart, without even Toriel being like "huh this weird new girl is from the same, idk, trailer park Kris was born in, I wonder if they've met".
Of course, that's just one point though, and I can't see it being that relevant to Gaster Machinations anyway. It just kind of stuck out as weird to me.
@@andrew_cunningham yeah honestly, it was one of those things i threw in as like "this Might be the case and its a thing i keep feeling Could be a possibility but i don't really have a Lot of confidence in that idea necessarily". i think there's ways it Could work but ultimately yeah it'd be really hard for that to not be rlly contrived and a lot of their interactions point more towards kris and susie having only known of each other when meeting at the school and not much more, other than susie just picking on kris specifically because of them being "the quiet/weird one".
funnily enough though! not too long after finishing the video, my other interpretation for why susie hated them so much in particular and what i think kris could've said suddenly screamed itself into existence and became much more clear, and there's also a video that another channel (Nighthawk) made recently about susie that i think really put a lot of my feelings on it a lot more into perspective/into a way that made sense. it's something i want to clarify/revisit in part 3 as i'm realizing that part is likely going to have some time dedicated to actually better outlining each of the main characters' pasts and how it's relevant thematically anyway, but i do think i've come to a conclusion about it now that feels a lot more natural given susie/kris's circumstances, so till then ...
personally, i think that the way spamton’s shop becomes a blank gray wall after his “transfer” is intentionally alluding to the gray color scheme of the “goners” and the idea that the world can function perfectly fine without their presence. great video, keep up the good work ❤
thankuu!!! i can def get behind that interpretation! that it's there but its existence doesnt interfere with the integrity of the world on a larger scale, kind of further amplifying the "optional-ness" of the secret bosses and spamton, fucked up, but it definitely works imo JJKLDGH
Perhaps another hint in that direction is that the sprite for the greyscale wall has a few pixels missing from the top right corner.
Interestingly Spamton's songs all have 'ghost' leitmotifs. This, the goner aspects, the mannequin, and the fact everyone talks about him in past tense....
I don't know how literally to take it.
@@Hex.A.Decimal i buy into the theory that spamton as an addison is already just straight up dead (a ghost in the machine), and toby intended that to be the case at the very least in a thematic/metaphorical way
Yeah, the grayscale color scheme is definitely another calling card for Gaster. Nothing else really uses it besides him, and objects and scenes closely associated with him.
I find it strange that you didn't mention what happens if you check the body of NEO just after you put the disk in. Like, Kris is PISSED. They kick it and punch it and stuff. I think that this, combined with the fact that they comply to Spamton's requests to come alone both times, pretty clearly tells us that, whatever Kris felt about it, they clearly wanted to take a shot at whatever deal Spamton was giving us, even shady as it clearly was.
i do kind of overlook it, ultimately because i do find it to be a really interesting interaction and it absolutely could be because they were angry/frustrated. it could absolutely be fuel for them genuinely wanting to help spamton or seeing themselves in him and wanting it to work in some capacity, either that or they just wanted to be Absolutely Sure it was just not working/doing anything, but the escalation definitely implies something more emotionally charged FHJJDFH i'll keep it in mind though and may mention it in the pinned comment potentially
This video and series is fucking AWESOME i love these videos so much!! You've done such a great job making em
Also your voice sounds really nice
I think that this is a solid idea. Kris is willing to take any deal at this point. Anything seems like it might be better than being our puppet right?
Oh wait wtf why did my comment become a reply woops sorry lol
I'd say Kris was worried and frustrated... But yeah, Kris is desperate to be something other than a meat puppet.
Imagine being in their shoes though? I would feel the same. Divinely set apart and chained to another's whim simultaneously...
Predestination cranked to 11. Gah. Growing up in the Church this is my greatest form of existentialism. If someone else is calling the shots, do my choices matter?
That one line in the weird route Spamton Neo fight you pointed out makes me think [Hyperlink Blocked] is supposed to be LOVE. Not only would it make sense in context seeing as they've literally been killing people, but the "making [LOVE]" wordplay would specifically fit with how many times theres like, weird romantic symbolism between Kris and Noelle in the weird route. Between the ferris wheel scene, the "We're something else" dialogue and the weapon of choice being a ring. And specifically with how Spamton Neo calls Noelle Kris' [Side Chick] and talks about them ""[Crying] IN A [Broken Home]" in the same fight.
Lol this is the same theory jaru posted
@@michallebel3236 I know, it's been a decently popular theory since chapter 2 released. I've always been a big supporter of it so I'm glad someone finally made a video about it.
wait does that mean the line where Spamton says "you've been making [hyperlink blocked], haven't you?", referring to when you and Noelle have been freezing enemies, would be... "you've been making [LOVE]??" sounds a little risque if so 😅this doesnt disprove your idea in any way, its just kinda funny
@@bigbadgammagnome I mean, Spamton also repeatedly called Noelle a synonym for whore. That's just par for the course with him lol
When you were talking about Ralsei you missed the acid tunnel of love bit where if you choose assuring dialogue options Ralsei faces the forth wall and if you choose the opposite he faces away from it. It's so crazy to think how much evidence there is that Ralsei knows the player. Its not like Undertale where the name Asriel calls you is actually just Chara, Gaster literally asks for your real name. Where the hell is this going to go????????
Honestly the way it asks for your name feels at least partially a reference to the mother series which does something similar
toby fox is gonna ask us for our security number in-game next chapter
to add to Theory 3 [57:31]
I think an argument can be made that Kris outright passed out in the cutscene leading up to the Spamton NEO fight, and you, the player, is controlling their unconcious body during the entire fight.
After getting pushed by Spamton, they don't react to being saved by Susie, not even flinching when getting run over by a Cart, and don't even get up when the Soul turns yellow.
Kris only gets up once the actual fight starts, and when snapping wires as Kris, the flavour text says "*you*" snapped down the wires, while in the Snowgrave version of the fight, it says Kris is the one using X-Slash.
And while yes, as stated in Andrew's video about the narrator, the game is very inconsistent when refering to Kris doing things (using "You did X" and "Kris did X" at random and interchangebly), it also happens in the same boss that has an instance of differentiating Kris' actions from yours (when Kris calls for help, and *you* wispher Noelle's name)
When Spamton Neo appears for the first time, it really does look like Spamton stomped Kris and us the player down, i dont know
That would be really interesting. Honestly, if this is never clarified or disproven, i might just believe this as canon for the flavor of it
15:00 something I never really see, but the shadow crystals being only visible by their shadow in the dark world but being glass - which has no shadow in the light world is INCREDIBLY fascinating to me.
Consider some glasses seem to disappear when submerged in water
Very, very interesting. This implies that they are some kind of part of a whole object that exists in multiple dimensions at once, with only certain aspects of it existing in each dimension. Now why does that sound familiar? Perhaps this is an object that got shattered across dimensions in the same accident as Gaster?
@@soylechuga9608With Gaster being scattered across Space and Time, they might very well be pieces of him. Maybe that's why you see different possibilities when you look through them, with him being in multiple timelines/realities.
Definitely gives the SC's a very 4-dimensional-object-in-3d-space kinda vibe for sure.
@@SurrealCrab
Wasn't there some flavor text about the shadow crystal looking like a watery shadow or something like that? I seem to remember something like that but I'm not sure if I'm misremembering it.
"As long as you're GREEN you CAN'T ESCAPE!" - Undyne, Undertale. This is what I was thinking about at the mention of the battle area box outline being Green. It seems like the soul is trapped pretty much any time it isn't directly controlling Kris.
As an added note, I wonder what would happen if the Soul was allowed to roam free in the light world. It's very slow when it moves in the cage, and can't even free itself from anywhere it gets put.
T e c h n i c a l l y speaking, the soul can roam free in the light world! There's just a lot of kris obscuring the soul, but nobody is stopping the soul (you) from going where ever
The most common theory I see abt Kris and Susie’s history is that they were in the same foster home. Kris being adopted could have been seen by young Susie as abandonment, and maybe created a jealousy over her feeling less wanted in comparison. Perhaps playing with Noelle reminded them of their friendship with Susie, causing them to freeze up. As to why it causes them to go play the piano, I’m not sure. Susie seemed surprised and almost excited at the idea that Kris can play the piano during the hospital interaction in chapter 2, so they didn’t know how to play until after their life at hometown. Maybe they’d promised her they’d learn how to play someday?
I figured out recently why i enjoyed your part 1 so much and why I'm here the minute part 2 got posted. Theory crafting and overanalyzing is a lot of fun, but everything you've brought up so far has come from the perspective of Toby Fox's design principles and philosophy as a writer.
Coming up with a twist that sounds cool is easy and the theory crafting space is full of it. Coming up with a theory that respects the beliefs of the artist is much rarer, and the way you've used Toby's previous work as a concrete basis for what he might be doing in deltarune doesn't just make your videos incredibly watchable, it also makes me feel the genuine love you have for the art of making video games. Excited to dig into part 2!
thank you so much waaa!!! that really means a lot, i do think it puts it in a way i didn't really thought of before in that like, part of my analysis does come from understanding just how the creator builds their work to begin with and working from at least my assumption of the perspective of "how would the creator of this thing realistically go about it, and for what reason/what kind of message would they want to send across by doing it this way". i felt like using UNDERTALE as a sort of base for how toby's already done this kind of storytelling simply just made sense bc it'd give me an idea of what *would* be most realistic to do when that style is applied on such a broader scale like DELTARUNE's, so i'm glad that does come across well enough! i have a lot of fascination with the medium in general because of how much it does that other mediums can't quite accomplish in the same way and to see how meta storytelling especially has been evolving over the years and how DR could expand on that has never fizzled out in how much it intrigues me JKLDGHJKL
This. This is the reason that I watch and love these incredible videos.
Yeah, a lot of theorist falls into the pitfall of simply trying to guess the big twist. But it's a lot more engaging to explore the themes of the game and what kind of idea the story might be trying to explore.
I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything more in-character for Deltarune than hearing you give a passionate talk about the magic of exploring pieces of media and the wonders of the imagination when we aren’t given all of the answers up front, which got me to reflect nostalgically on all the experiences of the sort I had as a child and all the ones I missed out on, only for the video to immediately be interrupted by an unskippable 30 second ad that consisted entirely of people singing about how much they love cheese.
Whoa the super secret cheese route...
Thou musteth pat the cheese.
There is a really obscure instance of spamton mentioning a meta element: it is at the end of the NEO figth you have a full inventory; "you filled your inventorium with half priced salami just to keep me out?"
oh right! i hadn’t thought of that but i’ll likely note that as a correction possibly alongside the F1 for Help line
you laying out the evidence like this made me realize for the first time how prominent the ideas of memories and forgetting them actually are in this game. even though characters have memories of each other and different events from the past, it feels like something has interfered with them (or their abilities to access them accurately?)
like, susie and kris clearly have preexisting beef, but it goes unacknowledged by both of them. noelle is lost memory central. she was a huge part of kris' childhood and was no doubt with them for some key traumatizing events, but she seems to have forgotten the details about exactly how everything changed. she couldn't remember how to get to the secret door in dragon blazers, but she found it every time anyway. she couldn't remember the name of the pipis.
and seam's line about the fun gang seemingly 'forgetting' that they fought jevil definitely sticks out here
it makes me think about gaster being wiped from memory and existence for all but the gaster followers. also, the memoryheads from undertale.
it just feels like kris remembers more than everyone else in hometown. but we don't know their thoughts, so it's hard to know exactly what they do and don't remember.
Veyr true, Noelle's poor memories seem riddled with holes...and if those memories are of all seriously bad events that happened to her (or that she *did*), then that is concerning as heck...
This is such an interesting thought that I always ponder about. Memories or the lack of them seem to be a topic that is heavily related to Gaster concepts and stuff happening in the world of Deltarune in general. Heck, even in Undertale it was an important concept.
I feel this weird connection to memories most strongly in the Light World. Like some other people mentioned, there's this weird feeling that Hometown is... off... in some way. Like there's something heavy in this town's history hanging in the air that goes unspoken but yet it can be slightly perceived. Like things aren't completely right somehow but you can't put your finger on why.
For example, people hardly ever mentioning Dess could be out of sympathy and not wanting to bring the topic up too much with Kris since they were friends (the only people who mention her are just her family after all), or maybe because it was long ago and people just don't talk about it that much anymore? (But considering that as a factor, you would think they'd feel more comfortable talking about it since it's no longer fresh (?, scars heal and all that).
Or maybe we're here too early to make any such guesses lol but I definitely feel like there's something up with that town that we don't know about yet.
PS: Noelle couldn't remember the name of the "SPECIAL" egg, which is different from the Pipis.
Smells like Last Thursdayism.
@Hex.A.Decimal ...on that note:
If the time loop theory has any merit, then maybe whoever or whatever is causing the timeloop to happen - maybe they are not directly reversing time back to an earlier state, but rather recreating the town from scratch based on what they know of it. Just like how an IRL memory is actually reconstructed wholesale via imagination and not recollected from some mental drawer like a photograph or movie, so is this town.
That, or maybe the townsfolk don't like to reopen old wounds IDK.
33:03
You talk about how Seam seems to know Spamton, referring to him as 'that salesman,' but I would like to say something:
-His first set of dialogue is expressing shock about you finding another shadow crystal, but trails off with an ellipses...
-his second set of dialogue begins with "Oh, is that so? That salesman..."
To me, this implies that there's an unseen piece of dialogue between Kris and Seam where Kris explains how they acquired the crystal. This isn't exactly an unreasonable assumption for an RPG. Plenty of games do this sort of thing, implying or describing how your character responds in a conversation, without forcing you to wait as your character describes something you already know. Heck, there's plenty of times where Kris gives messages to other characters without us hearing or needing our input
So ultimately, to me, this exchange isn't Seam knowing Spamton. It's a longer interaction we don't see the entirety of, something like:
"Well, what have we here! You managed to find another Shadow Crystal..."
"Yeah, I encountered a strange, disgraced salesman who got me to upload him into a ancient, powerful robot body designed by a lightner, and then when we beat him he gave this to me"
"Oh, is that so? That salesman found the crystal inside the old machine...?"
If anything, I would offer up the connection that each chapter's merchant will have some degree of connection to the secret bosses. Seam and Jevil were close, and while it's not as large a connection, Spamton had previously approached Sweet, Cap'n, and K_K asking about breaking into the mansion for the NEO body.
I would agree entirely if the game were translated from Japanese.
but I feel like because it’s written in English, the syntax is very unusual for implying skipped dialogue lines?
admittedly Toby Fox played a LOT of JRPGs and is now speaks and writes Japanese well. Using “Sō desu ka?” and “is that so” interchangeably is something even really basic weebs like myself do (in my head)
i mean swatch is connected to spamton too about the shopkeeper thing
Yep, @@gamingcookiereal, ya' can't forget Swatch.
Plus, there's also the Addisons.
That opening crawl is EXACTLY like what the first week of chapter 2 felt like
Idk if you're still reading these bc it's been so long, but there's something you missed about how "Kris is over there" during the Susie vs Lancer fight. Toby wasn't only saying Kris is in the cell which is in that direction. The fight is coded in such a way that Kris' sprite is LITERALLY present out of visual range in the direction from which the soul comes. That's how Toby got the soul to appear for the fight even though Kris isn't given their own turn at any point. They are technically still "in the party" even though we're supposed to view it as Susie alone.
I cant help but feel like this complete meta narrative glitch vibe is WHY toby chose to make the game in chapters. With this method he controls what can be discovered and showcase what it truly means to uncover the potential darkness behind the screen...
I am fairly certain that the song name Gallery refers to the penultimate King and Queen encounters taking place on literal “galleries” (balconies) overlooking the dark fountains, although the idea of it being a Rogue’s Gallery could be a fun double meaning.
35:55 I also think its interesting that he says to go east. If he’s talking to Kris, wouldn’t a more sensible direction be “Go to your left”? Maybe he says east because that’s more intuitive for the player, since left in the player’s eyes would be the opposite of Kris’ left when they exit the closet. Another thought, Ralsei might not know the layout of the Light World, but maybe because the Card Kingdom is east of Castle Town in the Dark World, the same holds true in the Light World and that’s all he knows?
1:14:51
There's also the fact that Spamton has a rant about how violent you are, ending with "YOU SHOULD'VE DONE ALL THAT EARLIER AND BEEN THE FIRST TO OWN MY [Commemorative Ring]" if you defeat him by FIGHTing in the alleyway.
Honestly, even if the Device Theory itself doesn't pan out, this comprehensive summary of the metanarrative is exceptional! Thanks for making it!
17:55 this makes me think about if the "exhausted state" happens because Kris is moving while not in a battle state or not? Like is the actual reason for the exhaust is them using the battle state to move on their own accord? Kris never moves, as in they never like walk or something in the battle state. Imagine trying to walk in a time where you are forced to not move. What Im suggesting is that Kris might have that as a reason for why they move in that very awkward and exhausted way. Like walking thru a storm. Just a thought.
That's really interesting idea. I guess it would help if we saw what RPG-style "Battle Scenes" are like in the Light World, and if they can even happen. If they can it would seem that it would be akin to UNDERTALE's battles just like all the menus are.
That's a really interesting way to think about it! Would suggest that Kris is super aware of the game's nature in that case though...especially since they have been doing this with their little birdcage since at least some time before our arrival, and any battles that *we* were part of...
Oh, and let's not forget that all three times Kris tears out the soul in this way in the light world, it's to use a weapon for at least some degree of violent action, even if just to a pie. As if the 'battle mode' not only limits their movement, but the kinds of actions they can effectively perform while in that state...
I honestly think that Kris said "yeah" to Susie when she said nobody would miss them. I think its obvious that Kris has some mental health problems and most likely has depression. Kris saying "yeah" also makes sense because Noelle said she barely saw their mouth move. When saying "yeah" your mouth moves really slightly that someone from a distance would probably not even see it.
this might be the best interpretation i've seen
42:10 I don't know if you'll talk about this later in this video, but it's possible that the mechanic where you can share collected things between saves (eggs, shadow crystals) might play a part in this, where it'll be possible to collect an egg in a normal save file and still apply the consequences of egg collection in a "weird route" save file where they are supposed to be unreachable, and the game might recognize this in some way.
Actually I was thinking about the shadow mantle is missing, and I am wondering: what if it’s not in chapter 3? What if it is literally impossible to defeat the secret boss of chapter 3 until reaching a certain point in a later chapter, and then looping back in time to chapter 3? Or maybe you have to play certain chapters concurrently, because they’re going to be like separate instances or something. I may not be sane
wait eggs go between saves?
@@blakecook9266that would actually be really cool
@@blakecook9266 That's something I've been considering as well. Since we have "day specific" (chapter specific) events like the onionsan interactions etc. Maybe there will be stuff only reachable in later chapters but you can hop onto another save file to continue with that knowledge or item? That would be one way to make use of those 3 save files.
@@krysidian That's genius. AND it explains why Toby would be dead set on releasing 3,4, and 5 together.
{ 8.25.23, 6:37 PM }
god damn there's already so many comments on this video jesus christ!!!!!!!!!! thank you all so so much for the support, i'm only now getting to all the notifs i've received and if i don't respond to yours and yours is particularly longer, chances are i'm saving it for a comment response stream or a few! i don't know when exactly it will be at the moment as i currently am prioritizing a thing known as "taking a break" and "getting much needed rest", so i'll decide on the specifics likely in a future community post and with more notices in advance, but just know i'm reading through all of them and if i feel like particularly giving some words on it i'll give ya a reply! 400 or so in just the first 6-7 hours is insane to me and i really appreciate the support though, thank you all so much again ^
...also, there are 7 secrets in this video submitted by my higher tier patrons. can you find all of them? =v=
Welcome to being POPULAR POPULAR POPULAR! Congratz of the video, and I look forward to hearing it's conclusion!
Great content Molly !!!! Please never stop, not to be dramatic but I will literally support you til my brain is dust and my body turns to limestone
Yeah this video is great plus is at 21:50 one of the secret or is it something more secretive
@@Drsartstuff I think the QR code leads to something in Morse code!
Amazing video;
2:05:45
A strange Omori-inspired "blog"
I'm surprised you didn't mention how the Ice Palace door mirrors the strangeness of Gaster's door in Undertale (especially with how it's part of the previous game). I feel like it's one of the three pages that directly connects Noelle to Gaster, the others being the egg and pipis pages.
that does seem like a pretty solid connection to make honestly now that i think about it... i guess it hadn't crossed my mind because i couldn't think of a specific moment where there's a door related to gaster that's just completely locked (aside from the bunker/shelter doors obviously but given that's in the light world it feels more grounded in that one's "reality" rather than feeling like this super obscure secret in the game and all), but i think even if risking confirmation bias, the connection definitely feels worth making given how much noelle is tied to him already JKLDHJKL
Yeah! Especially considering the suspicious elements of water and the 'depths' being utilized in Deltarune, it makes me curious about the palace_glaceir page. Especially considering that the white specs against blue might not be snow and ice, but rather bubbles, emerging to the surface...
There's also the music that plays, which sound like the ocean waves we hear jusssst before Kris wakes up in the Dark World in Chapter 1. Goodness, it makes my brain explode just to parse through what it might mean!
I was also thinking the door to Spamton’s trash shop seems a lot like the mystery man’s door! Strange grey door in an unexpected place
One thing I must say after hearing 1:14:55 is that there *is* more hinting towards the weird route in game. In the first Spamtom fight, if you beat him through violence on a normal route, he remarks that if you’re going to go around beating people up, that you should have done it sooner and been the one to buy his “COMMEMORATIVE RING”, referring to the Thorn Ring he sells you that is necessary to complete the route.
…which is a whole thing in and of itself. He knows the route WAS a possibility, isn’t any more, and tells you about it, saying that its “TOO BAD” that you didn’t.
Gallery also means a platform or upper floor protruding from the back or side of a wall inside a church or hall providing an overlook and extra space for people
I’m kinda looking at the first part of the definition, that being “a platform or upper floor overlooking something” in both chapters you’re on an upper floor/platform when it plays overlooking a dark fountain. I think it’s more of a dual meaning being both the rouges gallery and an actual more literal gallery.
From a quick Google search into the word Gallery the second definition is the one you are saying:
"a balcony or upper floor projecting from an interior back or side wall of a hall or church, providing space for an audience or musicians."
Someone pointed out (though I do not remember who it was) that you can also take into account the later part of the definition as well. Meaning that is not only a balcony or upper floor but that it is also projecting this encounter and lending its space to an audience, this hypothetical audience being either the player or some unseen force (ie Gaster, the Angel, the dark fountain or something else entirely).
I just thought it was an interesting idea that could reinforce your meaning as well as being a play on the "rogue's gallery" trope (and we all know how much Toby likes playing around with names lol).
Being a game maker user myself, it is quite fascinating to see how toby handle things behind the scenes and what it might imply for his future plans. The goenr maker especially is a very fascinating case as putting variables in a save file is a very deliberate process and toby went out of his way to include seemingly unimportant stuff like the "have you answered honestly" question that could have easily just been a dud.
35:20
It should be said that Susie acts surprised and informed because this is coming off of a joke of trashy saying the same thing but Susie shrugs his information off as useless, while praising the same info ralsei says. This is all at trashy’s expense while also reminding the player of the recruit system.
that is also a fair point, i hadn't thought of it in relation to trashy mentioning the same thing so that specific point might not really amount to much after all ... i do still find most of the other interactions i mentioned incredibly odd though DGHJDGHJKL
Another thing I find interesting is that Seam is on the preview switch menu when you download it saying “hee hee… welcome travelers” just thought that was cool :)
any images/videos of this? because that could genuinely be HUGE
You're talk about the Weird Route and Deltarune as a whole calling back to old video games is part of why I am so excited for when chapters 3-5 get released. There is going to be so much hidden away, and I can't wait to go looking for it
The weird route feels very very “loopholey” to me. Like it’s designed around the idea that our normal party members cannot kill things. However, Noelle can freeze them solid. And while this isn’t outright killing them, it’s still a violent and brutal way to completely incapacitate them.
To get the weird route you have to very deliberately take advantage of the only thing in the game capable of actually doing this, and the only person capable of it too… it’s fascinating. They designed a route in the game where you have to deliberately find an exploit in the “rules” of the deltarune world
Possible meaning behind the soul coming from Kris during the Susie vs Lancer fight:
In Andrew’s video on Kris, the first topic he brings up is whether the soul is of the player, or of Kris. Does the soul represent us, as the player, or is it Kris’s, and we as the player are keeping it on a chain?
Well, since here we as the player keep our perspective over Susie, but the soul emanates from Kris’s body, it implies that we, the player, are some ethereal force that is able to change perspectives, regardless of Kris’s soul’s location. Kris gets to keep their soul while we fly around, until we need it for the battle.
This means that Kris’s soul is their own soul, and us as the players, are hijacking their soul to control them. We are, however, able to leave at any point, since we are an outside force invading their soul. This also means Kris had to remove their own soul just to move around without our control, which is both really badass and overall confirms that Kris only has one soul in them.
This could be taken another way, that the soul just leaves when it's Dictated by the game normally to leave.
Irrelevant to whether the soul is ours or Kris's, Kris just manually removes it outside of intended Game moments.
The fact it flies over to be involved in Susie's fight almost feels implicating that it is our soul just stuck in Kris atm.
Btw this is another interesting point, something that Molly has mentioned at one point. I don't think I recall any point within the entire game when we are watching and the soul is not somewhere very close or is directly on the screen. The only two instances so far where that isn't the case are directly affected by Ralsei, as if he has the means to transfer our vision to another place. I wouldn't be surprised if the soul was off-screen.
57:37 2 and 3 are probably the most correct. Kris most defenitely sees theirself in spamton, wanting to be free from their strings, but more so sees him as a cautionary tale after he fails. To me, its like if kris succeded in getting rid of all of their strings, what would happen to spamton would happen to them. A kind of alternate path to their own.
Just realizing it now how unfortunate Noelle’s search history must be, looking for her sister but all that comes up is holidays in December.
i remember a few years back, toby mentioned something along the lines of some other big project using an idea he had been building up to in deltarune. most people assumed he was talking about OMORI
however, with the whole 'december' and then only finding her under another name 'dess' and the 'find her' thing, im wondering if he was actually talking about petscop
Interesting bet he saw Petscop but Christ it was so long and so sad I hope he wasn’t too influenced by that
A note about the chapter 0 I just realized; The way ordered lists are coded in many programming languages, they always start at an index of '0', so they go 0,1,2... So the placeholder of a chapter '0' could be so that the index correlates to the actual chapter number, ie index 1 is chapter 1, index 2 is chapter 2, etc, so they can avoid having to remember to put a +1 whenever they write any code involving chapter selection. This seems to line up with the code of the chapters shown at 23:15, where the name is for the chapter equal to the index (index 1 is chapter 1, The Beginning, index 2 is chapter 2, A Cyber's World).
I suspect that whatever traumatic event happened to Kris might be related to the ocean. The first thing we hear when entering the dark world is ocean waves, maybe it's some sort of memory that Kris has of the ocean and something about the dark world reminded them of it. May have something to do with the old song from the sea as well, it could be that Kris is playing that song on the piano. Noelle and Dess may have been involved in this event too.
37:00 I think you're definitely right that Ralsei having so much knowledge of the UI and game mechanics is diegetic because if Toby really wanted it to just be a handy way to explain things to the player, he could have easily just had this text appear in the battle info boxes or on signs as he did in Undertale (i.e. Press "Z" to read signs.)
HOLY SHIT
Not connected to anything in the video but watching in I realized something.
Rouxls turns to stone when he does not because of time spent in there, but because when he drops the accent, he's no longer thematically congruent with the cyber world (i.e. he's not an (internet) pirate). He does not turn completely because he still has the hat.
I wonder if the aspect of the weird route in chapter 2 being out of the way and hard to discover will also occur across different chapters.
I'm thinking this might be the case because the thorn ring is only obtainable by aborting a weird route, and it seems to be required for the twisted sword to be made. So perhaps across different chapters you have to make choices that will result in an even weirder route than the individual per-chapter weird routes?
It's possible that the genocide 'remembering what you did' across saves thing might apply once again...except this time, the true weird route might be a case where you are *intentionally* invoking this for the true path to be opened, whatever the hell that would even be...
Something I've thought about - it's possible to go through most of the Spamton quest, get the Loaded Disk, and not put it back in NEO. I wonder if there might be some device in a future chapter where you could use the Loaded Disk, smuggling Spamton into a Dark World he shouldn't be in (and because the body this hypothetical form would take is native to that fountain, there's little risk of turning to stone). And from there... anything is possible
@@PeridotEX Oh goodness, I didn't even slightly think of that until now. :O
(Though it does make me think of the 'Kris, where the FUCK are we?' meme, except in this case it's Spamton showing up in a completely unexpected body in a completely unexpected context and probably berating the heck out of Kris for it XD)
I've hit a wall with Undertale and Deltarune analysis recently. I felt I've discovered all that I could and have theorized all what could be possible. This video will relight my torch. Can't wait to dive in, great work!
that really means a lot, thankuu!!! honestly between working with halfbread and also my own digging, it feels like even when i've found everything, there's something that manages to prove me wrong. it's honestly fascinating how much UT/DR seem to just do that and i'm really glad i could call attention to more underdiscussed stuff or at least encourage people to look at it from a new angle ^^
I totally understand your nostagia. Rumor and glitch hunting, and creepypasta stuff from back in the day having a certain magic to them. And how Noelle and the weird route kinda work with all those themes so well. Im so interested with what secrets we can find later. The spamton sweepstakes felt like a irl glitch hunt with the deltarune community as it happened. I loved that event as it was happening. So crazy. Anyway. You did amazing. And I’m real,y looking forward to your next video. I was so hype to see your video in my sub feed today.
I think some of Kris’s behaviour can be explained by one someplace fact.
Kris is adopted.
Not only are they adopted, they were adopted by monsters, not other humans.
It could be a coincidence. That toriel was just the best option of the candidates. But I’d be shocked if the reason wasn’t a little, worse, than that.
Thanks for documenting the sweepstakes like that, what a fever dream that was to experience in real-time
I think [HyperlinkBlocked] is LOVE. If you use it in the context of the sentence, it sounds like “making love” or sex, which fits with all of the offputting sexual jokes Spamton makes towards Kris and Noelle in that route (like calling her a “hochi mama”)
Personally been a fan of "you're crying" for what Kris said to Susie.
Susie's insults seemed to be coming from her own issues, so it makes sense she'd have tears only Kris could see up close.
It's not an insult or a comeback or anything to provoke her.
It would just shock Susie that she's showing some kind of vulnerability, that she might accidentally be telling on herself.
So she just runs.
The GALLERY interpretation as a rouge’s gallery is one that I think would work well, but I have a little personal theory about this track. A gallery is the balcony of a theater, where the audience looks down at the play. If you consider the boss fights with King and Queen as the act, then that means something is watching from beyond. Both fights share a single line of flavor text, “The fountain flows ominously.” Given how it seems to be in the perfect spot to see the fight, I think it could be referring to something or someone watching from within the fountain. One final point in my theory is that the actual track of GALLERY, when reversed, sounds like Gaster’s Theme. Not to mention that the image on the dark fountain is the same as the background of the goner maker, and…
I know this is an absolutely insane crackpot theory, but I think it’s at least worth talking about
The weird thing about that soul-thing from the Susie battle in Chapter 1 is the fact that we actually see and have control of where susie is, away from where the Soul is.
From what i remember, Ralsei is literally the only force that can separate the player from Kris'es soul, at least for now. When Kris remove their own soul, we can't see what their doing, because we're STUCK looking at where the soul is, when the group diverges in both Ch1 and 2, we're always with Kris, because they are the ones which were inhabiting, or at least controlling, the soul, but then Ralsei just decides that now we're gonna see Susies adventures because he needs time alone with Kris, and is literally the only one capable at that... Why???
I imagine he is telling Kris why they have to keep us happy when he cuts us off. Keeping Kris in line. Keep the story going.
Lest the world be covered in darkness.
I don't know how much he can do yet, though. I think he may end up being a 'hidden boss' of accepting your fate.
@@Hex.A.Decimal I think he is probably talking about something important he doesn't want we to know about, or about you, but idk if he would talk about "why he can't cut us off" considering Kris seems pretty aware of that since the start of the game. I do think he will definitely confront us later tho
i feel like the susie segments are voluntary on kris's part and not ralsei? since he tries to do it in snowgrave but it seems like kris doesnt let it happen
@@gamingcookiereal If Kris could disconnect is so we don't control them, why would they need to remove their own soul at the end of the Chapters? I think on Snowgrave Ralsei can't do it for other reasons, probably we got too much power/control on that route after everything on Cyber City, or it's something about Noelle not wanting to be seen on that scene, and fighting against it?. Honestly, I'm not confident on why it doesn't happen in Snowgrave, but i doubt Kris could just send us to Susie
LETS GOOOOO
It feels like we’re never going to run out of finding new stuff about deltarune. You’ve brought up a ton of super useful points in these videos that I hope changes how the community looks at the game!!
(at 36:08, Ralsei saying to head east could imply that he knows about the camera and its current position, despite it seemingly not being visible to anyone else. I’m guessing kris doesnt carry a compass with them, so from their perspective, our east would be their west.)
someone might have already made note of this, but Spamton also nods to the UI like Ralsei does with the "PRESS F1 FOR HELP"
for real, it’s incredible how much effort and time you’ve put into these vids and i can’t wait to watch this and eventually part 3. thank you molly!!
thankuu!!!! i'm really glad the reaction's been mostly really positive so far, part 3 will come some day but i really appreciate how much people have been waiting for/enjoying this one given how much there is to it KLJLDJKGH
@@m0llystars your vids are always worth the wait! plus i love a good arg ;)
@@m0llystarstake your time, we have our plates filled with this one for a very long time. Your videos make us think about the lore in different ways and it's so cool rewatching while getting our own interpretation of yours. Considering this ones length and amount of content, I think it'll take some time until most of us fully digest it
1:05:41 I like this theory a lot, it makes the most sense in my mind especially since Spamton is essentially trying to become as powerful as gaster, so gaster giving the player the edge in battle makes complete sense to me if gaster felt threatened by what Spamton is trying to do.
just binged your part 1 and 2 and im so excited for part 3 you have NO idea
At this point you've easily become my favorite deltarune theorist. Two absolute bangers, and I can't wait for a third. The amount of effort you put into making these videos is insane, also the time you must've taken for research and writing like mannnn.
Another reason why people thought Noelle was Spamton's "mother" was the egg page existing (or being found?) before the bluecircle page. People seemingly drew connections with "SPECIAL" to Spamton saying "specil" or something? (and a few other things)
Congrats on getting it done! Time to obsess over deltarune for 500 hours again
500 hours is like, 3 weeks
ive already been doing that for months 1:44:29
THE TIMESTAMP WAS ACCIDENTAL OOPSIES
Chapter 0 is probably going to be a backstory to kris's life but only if you can get to a certain point without deleating there save file, imagine getting to load kris original file?
pretty sure chapter 0 is actually how the chapter selection screen is called in the game file. I think HalfBreadChaos talked about it in one of their videos
I think Susie probably hates Kris because despite being human, they were adopted and have a loving family. Considering it is likely that Susie comes from a broken home, she probably sees their family life as comparatively perfect (obvs not the case) and a teenager with issues might see it as unfair and lash out. I don't think her hate needs to be reasonable - no hate is, tbh; it being a warped logic is more than enough.
I can imagine her seeing the Kris arriving at school, being pampered by Toriel, holding her hand, and proceeds to hate their guts because "it's unfair" that her family life is trash.
1:11:22 there's actually quite a few more things in the code referring to stuff in the route by a name
All the things with "weird" in their name are
Sound for the pirouette effect that drops Jevil's defense and jumbled HP
Sprite for the light under the fast travel doors
Spamton Neo pipis attacks
Freeze Ring scene dialogue
A bunch of stuff that seems to handle alt text and events in the city given the Frozen Chicken sprite in game objects?
Manhole shortcut
Many of these are from the alt route but there's not just quite a few things missing but VERY IMPORTANT things missing, say, the variables that track the progress, success, and failure of the route as a whole because SOMETHING has to be tracking it
... I was gonna have a whole thing about how I found the next stuff originally but just now as I was double checking things I noticed if you just open the "weirdroute_manipulator_Alarm" object in the code tab it just gives you 2 of the things I mentions.
so to just skip to the point
If you search sideb under variables you get
scr_sideb_get_phase
scr_sideb_fail
scr_sideb__checkencounters
scr_sideb_remainingencounters
and a bunch of other things with "sideb" in the name including "sideb_route"
Basically everything needed to track progress and failure of the route
You can also find
All of Noelle's alt battle sprites
Scripts tied to the variables above
Intro scene to alt Spamton Neo
Replacement of Farris Wheel scene
The added Hospital scene
There's a few more things but I'm struggling to parse some of it but suffice to say, there's so much more to this route tied to the name "sideb" than "weird"
I've just come to call it "Side_B" (Capitalized and space added for readability and "_" to hint back to it being a name from the code)
Looking at it all again, the handful of things labeled "weird" are important to the route and there was more of them than I remember so I might just start calling it "Side_B: Weird Route"
EDIT:... probably should have let the video play a few more seconds but this is info that isn't brought up so I don't feel like going back threw and changing anything, TLDR; there actually is far more stuff in the route tied to "sideb" than there is tied to "weird"
oh damn! i had no idea side_b had so much more shit to it in the data but thanks for bringing that up to me, i'll have to make that a correction because that's definitely a LOT more than i thought it would be referring to it as internally; i'd argue now both that and weird route are just viable as "official" names of sorts for the route
extremely late and a lot less relevant point: Toby Fox being the hipster millennial he is, is it possible that “side_b” could be comparing the route to the B side of a record?
In vinyl singles, the A side is the single itself- for example Wouldn’t It Be Nice by the Beach Boys. the B side is a nice bonus, a way of using the record space on the back of the song everyone was already buying to put out music that likely wouldn’t get as much radio airtime- usually whatever the record label thought wouldn’t be as commercially viable (read: “weird”). With that Beach Boys example, the B side is God Only Knows, which while still famous is a much slower, more serious and orchestral song than the chipper arrangement of Wouldn’t It Be Nice.
Given Toby’s musical precociousness, naming the alternative route as “side_b” might be more encouraging than the pejorative label “weird” or the trauma-inducing fan name “Snowgrave”. B sides in music history are famous for often being richer and more interesting than the singles they accompany. Perhaps a “side_b” run could have really deep lows like the Snowgrave storyline, but reveal a path to great high points too, resulting in the kind of narrative complexity that might coax emotionally squeamish players like myself into actively playing it. Maybe!
the quality and rate of your work is nothing short of commendable, great work on this. 💙
thanku so so much waaa!!! i really appreciate it
@@m0llystars the whole "hey, these SPOOKY AF obscure alternate routes are a thing" is really interesting, but what does it meannnnn
This is an incredible theory/analysis video, I love all the weird whacky transitions, snippets of unexplained visual elements and memes sprinked throughout, it made for an entertaining watch.
I couldn't find it going back through the video but I swear I paused the video on something blue that flickered on the wall of kris' bedroom somewhere
but I forgot the timestamp and I'd probably
never be able to remember it.
The editing, the art, the humor, the analysis, the eloquence, referencing Vinesauce... You make me believe I am in a good timeline for once.
The fact that secrets are so deeply hidden in Deltarune to the point it’s rarely discussed despite searching files being so common is incredible
i genuinely learned new things like the “VERY INTERESTING” line in the servey program menu from Part 1, and i’ll always love that Deltarune has this kinda stuff and has had this kinda stuff from 3 YEARS ago
Do you think that the twisted sword has anything to do with this theory? After all, the most interesting part for me personally is the fact that it's an (possibly) aborted weird route exclusive item (maybe it's part of the actual weird route?) and it decreases the amount of trance that Kris has, so how would that work on the meta standpoint? What would be the point of equipping an item on your character that makes it less controlable by you be?
what if it's some weird way of freeing kris from our control? or worse, forcing them to be constantly aware of all the awful things we're making them (and noelle) do? increasing noelle's trance leaves her mostly unaware of what happened, or at least the specifics, so lowering kris's trance would force them to be aware of what's happening no matter how much they want not to be. (I kinda hate that I thought of this, it's so evil but entirely possible.)
@@Orchid_Courage Yeah! That's what I mean! (the idea of forcing kris to be aware of what we're doing to them no matter how much they don't want to is pretty morbid not gonna lie.)
Something I hope comes up in Part 3 of this is how _shifty_ Noelle looks when she insists that she has no idea what "Snowgrave" is, right before telling the player to watch what happens when "I cast a spell I don't know".
It's pretty clear to me that Noelle definitely has at least heard of "Snowgrave" before - and what's more, she's somehow _cast_ it before. The Light World doesn't actually seem to have magic, from what we've seen so far... the closest is the occultism that Catty and Kris used to and may still dabble in. Perhaps Kris dragged Noelle along at one point, and she liked the idea of a "cold" spell?
But looking at Noelle's reaction, if that did happen then it must have _really_ not gone well. To the point where she blocked out the memory, like she does with the Snowgrave events early on. I don't think there's anything concrete to indicate that the result of that was the disappearance of Dess, but I really wouldn't be surprised.
In fact the jevil item isn't *100%* permanent. It checks whether you;v beaten him on any ch1 save. But if you delete your ch1 saves, you don't get the item any more.(also the devilsknife always takes priority if you have both on separate saves)
Now here's a question. If you get the Jevil item on a save where you didn't beat Jevil, and then delete the Jevil-beating save, does that item-containing savefile still hold up the Jevil continuity for future save slots?
1:05:26 this partially reminds me of the shadowmantle, since seam also states that it would be "impossible to win" against the next secret boss without it. it could mean that the shadowmantle is a method to change the colour of your soul, but that would raise more questions as to why it happens in spamton's fight
1:16:34 the ray gun thing sent me back, i had completely forgot about it until now lol
1:31:46 going to the hospital in the light world also advances the weird route, and the castle town save point narration only changes to its weird route variant when at this phase of the weird route and it says "you still feel the power in your hands..."
overall another fantastic video, and the wait for it was completely worth it. great work, i'm looking forward to part 3 :)
I was thinking that the Shadow Mantle could be a way to change soul colour too, with the theme of secret bosses in mind. I have a lot more to say about that thing in my comment also. XD
Wait, when does the "you still feel the power in your hands" text appear. I didn't know about this.
@@eloise2319 castle town save point as i said
I mean Kris has a phone
Im convinced that once this series is complete it will stand as one of the greatest analysis pieces of the fandom. Chances are we will get a bit of forewarning before chapters 3-5 drop, and this will be at the top of my rewatch list before i play the game to get myself re-caught up on all the info we have so far
2:17:20
... What are the chances Kris said "Proceed"?
No really, think about it. Very little mouth movement, something that would be along the lines of "Do it" that might take Susie out of her anger momentarily, and then, Kris just staring at a hiding Noelle somehow knowing where she was... not sure what it would mean if that's true, but proceed as the option for choices in snowgrave always felt odd. It's such a random word, yknow? Creepy, but specific. Might be worth at least considering?
i recall a Tumblr post (or more specifically the tags of a comic) commenting on the unnerving romantic vibes going on with the events and dialogue choices in the weird route, and I do agree there's some strange shit of that effect going on between Kris and Noelle. I'm not sure how relevant that is to the Device Theory but considering you addressed both the weird route itself and the characterization of those two kids in this video, I felt like it was worth mentioning.
There could be an argument that the weird and creepy interactions with noelle mirror how certain games handle romantic options. After all, it's a common critique of dating games that they too often boil down to picking the right dialogue choices to win over the character's affection.
I would fit the general vibe of the weird route being about the player imposing themselves as the main character of the story and rejecting the agency of every other character to do so.
The truly incredible thing is not that the video is 2h and a half long, but that it has extremely good pacing, editing and thought all the way through.
Even if the third part was nothing more than a three hour Donald Trump Mug shot memes compilation showing the same image on loop i would still consider this series one of the best Deltarune Theory/Analysis videos out there
Wait, I think I remember seeing your log of all the secret pages during the Sweepstakes! I am so curious to hear what the Device Theory entails, but please take all the time you need to make the video and keep yourself healthy!
Loved watching through this, enough that i watched it twice! Excited to see the third part to see how your theory ties it all together :)
Re: chapters being entirely different in the code, I remember hearing that part of it is that they actually updated the engine for chapter 2, and were unable to entirely adapt it into chapter 1. This is mostly seen with like enemy targeting behavior, where enemies would deliberately target one party member in 1, whereas in 2 it'll be more random, iirc
another example would be how the text boxes worked in chap 1 vs 2
in chapter 1 after doing something (don't remember what triggers it) you unlock the auto masher (holding c) which then mashes though text boxes 15 times a second
but this isn't the limit on how fast you can mash the text boxes in chapter 1 as you can also mash the confirm buttons to reach the limit of 30 inputs per sec
this is used in speedruns but was changed in chapter 2 where the limit was reduced to 15 inputs which just holding c reaches
(there is also text boxes per sec which is inputs/2)
What's the possibility that "Chapter 0" refers to pre-gameplay menus, the goner maker, etc shit like that? Does anything in the code refer to those sections as Chapter 0?
They don't.
gms programmer speaking:
I didn't look in deltatune's code, but toby surely used the "for loop" for this draw event. see, it would be really annoying to refer to each chapter like this: chapter one is array index 0, chapter two is array index 1, etc.
rather than choosing this, toby decided to start the for loop with 1, getting rid of this annoying little thing.
@@cornexpress why would he need to define a placeholder name for chapter 0 at all, then?
@kyyay2283 dude you are talking about a man who's code looks like geometry dash recent tabs
@@kyyay2283it seems that a logical conclusion would be that it’s not a placeholder.
New hypothesis; Gaster was mute when he was alive so he used sign language to communicate.
The funniest thing is that Toby managed to make the weird route feels so much like a creepypasta rumor that people made an actual creepypasta rumor based on it: the salt route
fuck yeah! can't wait to get to the real meat of the theory, been loving this series so far. One little thing I'd note is the hospital bead toy that is the only other light world change post-weird route - "one of the blue beads is broken and torn off." Maybe not too relevant to the metanarrative focus of your theory but I find that bit super interesting in regards to the overall narrative/ending of the game.
"The beads march grimly among their set path" is such a wonderfully creepy line and I love it.
I have very little to say! Thanks for making this video!
It's nice to get some more interesting overviews to sustain the mental collapse that is deltarune.
Actually, I do have a little bit to say, maybe.
When it comes to kris, I'm utterly fascinated to see where their character goes. I always thought the reason they couldn't play piano in the hospital was because we, the player couldn't.
But your reading is a bit more interesting.
Kris has always been characterized as someone who just, inherently doesn't fit in. He's a different species, and his dislike of all topics regarding humanity is a theme I hope is explored more.
Now, something that may or may not be touched on is kris's origin. Why did toriel adopt a human? It could just be as simple as "I want another kid but I refuse to get pregnant again" but it just feels...off?
And in regards to Susie, isn't it interesting how little is going on with her? Every character seems to have some hidden layer, a connection to something, but Susie?
Susie almost feels disconnected from the wider lore at large. And only through her involvement with kris does she become important.
Which is impressive, considering she can resist the hearts control.
Which is obvious, she repeatedly ignores commands (i.e. Ferris wheel) and can even act against us (i.e. learning how to act and forcing ralsei to as well.)
ALSO your power? The track that plays whenever you seal a dark fountain is composed of exclusively electric guitar, which is an instrument HEAVILY associated with Susie.
And what do you know? In the weird route, when you seal the fountain, YOUR power doesn't play.
It's interesting, and makes me wonder if "don't forget" is being sung by Susie. Wouldn't be surprising tbh.
(P.S)
Ok this is COMPLETELY unrelated to everything, but rouxls kaard, sweet monkey fucker rouxls is DRIVING ME CRAZY.
You know why? Because I genuinely cannot tell what sort of role he's supposed to be playing.
I'd say he's a joke character, a mettaton of sorts. Yes he's a boss, and interferes, but he doesn't really do much.
But that isn't true! Rouxls is utterly integral to victory against queen. Without his construction of the thrash machine, the robot wouldn't have been strong enough to face giga queen.
More then that, he makes regular appearances in scenes involving all the major characters, the prison with king and queen, tagging along with kris and Susie, it's wild.
But more then that, he is in your pocket at the end of chapter 2, when kris opens the Fountains. Meaning, rouxls will make an appearance in chapter 3 (unless he stays in kris's inventory the whole time.)
All of this to say, is rouxls important? Be seems to be a lot stronger than he lets on as well, changing gameplay on the fly simply because he says so.
Wait, actually that makes me think (this is wildly speculative and shouldn't be treated as anything tangible.)
What if the reason gameplay changes when we fight queen is specifically because rouxls assisted us in making the robot? Enabling us to fight queen?
Anyway that's all, my scatterbrain is not going to survive the drought of delta-content
Damnit i misgendered kris and CZcams won't let me edit lol.
1:33:19 you can actually leave tasque manager, mauswheel, and werewerewire alive in the weird route and get the “neutral” dialogue from queen, since the weird route stops counting kills after the berdly fight. alternatively, if you use glitches to obtain the thorn ring early (like Shayy did at GDQ ‘21) there is no need to kill any enemies after the freeze ring (except berdly, obviously).
that is true! i hadn’t thought that like you dont really need to kill anyone after berdly since you’d be locked into that route at that point regardless so it could go either way; same for if you manage to get the thorn ring early but that seems more in the realm of just speedrunning altogether HDKDHDJ
amazing as always
shayy go to bed
waaa thank you so much shayy wtf!!!! ^^
Everhood music in these long-form analysis vids is always a must for some reason and I couldn't for the life of me be happier. You can imagine how excited I was when you frontloaded it at the very beginning.
It's not from everhood. Everhood took the original song, NOISE GATE by KITCALIBER, and slightly mixed it without the creator's permission
The everhood devs didn't make that track. They were unaware that the person who did mix that track (Lolita as Roxy) didn't get Kitcaliber's permission @@kaardman4110
@@kaardman4110 Wait are you serious-
@@ethanotoroculus1060They didn't, someone they commissioned music from did and didn't tell them, leaving them to clean the resulting mess
@@WD_Gaster66 Jesus, that sounds confusing as hell. Where are you two getting this from btw?
Your videos genuinely are one of the best Deltarune analyses around (especially with presentation), makes me really excited for what the next part is going to be about!
On rewatch, it sometimes seems like Ralsei is also interfacing through the device, but being a darkner makes this so convoluted.
Gotta say tho, rewatching this is holding me down for DR content. There not many theory channels that are *this good* out here
Just realized flags 1224 and 1225 are specifically set to 0. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Zero, missing, just like Dess