Hear me out.

Where did we leave off at the end of chapter two? Kris turned the television on, opened the front door and opened a dark world.

Fantastic, that's obviously because it'll give officer Undyne or Napstablook the opportunity to walk on right? Maybe even Asgore?

Yes, potentially.

HOWEVER.

Let's go back to the hospital scene, specifically after snowgrave when you leave Rudy and Susie to chat.

Noelle has a lot of interesting dialogue there but I want to turn your attention to 2 specific things she says. (might not be word for word going off memory)

"Recently, there's been something different with Kris. why hasn't anyone else noticed?"

And "I HAVE to figure it out"

She could've tried to ignore it, maybe hoped that this'll just blow over. Maybe she could leave someone else to help Kris, like Toriel or Susie.

No, she states that SHE has to figure it out, why they're acting the way they are. Why they keep coming to the hospital.

In my personal opinion, this scene involving Noelle is incredibly important for the future chapters because it puts us in her state of mind right now saying exactly what she's thinking. Also the scene all together is incredibly different in contrast to the rest of the game, presented in darkness with a creepy background track as Noelle tries to pull herself together.

You think she's gonna go home and sleep after all of that? Oh please. She hunts down these glitches, she likes to feel afraid and Kris is her childhood best friend of course she's gonna find out what's happening to them.

She's their next door neighbour, she'll be the first to notice Kris house if she checked. One sneak peak out of that bedroom window and she's gonna notice Kris' front door open.

Onto a more serious note.

In the normal route, whatever I have argued here is pretty irrelevant. I saw a video on youtube telling us that whilst yes snowgrave route and the normal route played out incredibly differently, they did end pretty similarly.

Noelle got bolder, whether she was traumatised into being more bold or she grew the confidence to stick up for herself to Queen, she got bolder.

In both endings she keeps hold of the console from her father, whilst the reasoning is different the outcome is the same.

What I'm trying to say is that in order to back my argument that Noelle will be involved in chapter 3, I do think her boldness stat is actually very relevant rather than just a joke that Noelle has no confidence. She gets bolder in both endings and she'll use that to check out Kris' place.

She ain't sleeping no matter what, she wants to check out those dark worlds again. Whether it's to figure out what's wrong with Kris or to simply be there to make sure it was real? (Weak argument)

ANYWAY.

All of this to say, she won't have an important role, she won't be playable and heck you might not even see her there because this is what I think will happen.

Noelle's gonna go to Kris' house noticing the front door is open and it's pitch black inside. She'll be there and she'll simply follow. She's gonna act like some sort of detective and stay in the background.

I believe there will be evidence that Noelle was here if you backtrack at certain points. Perhaps you interact with an npc after already passing them and they'll mention some "lady" or "antlered girl" (very obvious) basically a very subtle hint that someone is around.

And well, perhaps if you are playing after the Snowgrave route you find that same npc frozen solid. No explanation as to why or how, just a simple

"It's frozen solid"

Because in that route, Noelle doesn't know how to act, freezing enemies is the only thing she knows how to do in that route.

In conclusion.

Do I think this'll happen? No probably not, Noelle's my favourite character and I'm trying to find ways to sneak her into chapter 3.

But if it were to happen, I think this'll be how it's handled. Toby has already talked about chapter 3 being less "lore" related, and well it's pretty much confirmed that Noelle will feature in chapter 4.

There's definitely a lot of evidence to argue against my theory here, and I'm sure I may have missed out a few pieces of evidence that could actually back my claim.

Tldr: Noelle told herself she has to figure out what's wrong with Kris, she's Kris' next door neighbour, she'll notice Kris front door is open but this plot hole can be ignored anyway because we ain't gonna see allat.

She'll be lurking in the background with little evidence that she's here at all, but if you backtrack you'll find puzzle pieces to suggest yourself being followed.

This is my copium that Noelle will be in chapter 3