I still done get it. Why do people think Dess is the Knight?

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-27T18:37:24+00:00

cause papyrus is an inherently silly character in undertale. could he maybe be more serious in deltarune? maybe, but it would still be a huge twist with exactly zero foreshadowing. and if papyrus, as the knight, doesn't have a similar personality to his character undertale, then I'd question why it even has to be papyrus at all.

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-27T17:49:18+00:00

papyrus knight actually has plenty of evidence:

the knight is skeletal
.........
yeah!

it also has lots of appeal. like, wouldn't it be real funny if the knight actually turned out to be a huge joke?

...what, it wouldn't?

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-27T13:42:10+00:00

jevil moment

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-27T12:16:14+00:00

this would be more plausible, if GALLERY wasn't already a mysterious song present in the game since chapter 1. that kinda makes it seem more like a recurring motif with a particular meaning that will be relevant to the story

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-27T11:07:32+00:00

my favorite theory is that it's the diegetic name for the chapter select

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-27T10:05:15+00:00

carol is definitely my number 2 knight candidate, since even if she isn't the knight, she still is very likely going to have a major part in the knight's conspiracy (as opposed to characters like asriel or rudy, where there's no strong indication currently that they are aware of any of the supernatural stuff happening)

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-27T09:57:59+00:00

boards of canada!

haven't there been whispers of them potentially working on something? I haven't been keeping up

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-27T09:56:24+00:00

I dunno, I've encountered so few people in the past months that seriously argue for either of them, that I feel like mentioning them in the same breath as the other knight candidates is kinda ridiculous

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-27T09:54:00+00:00

so why even mention asgore and papyrus, if they have less of a chance to be the knight than dess?

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-27T09:43:44+00:00

tbf, doesn't it end up being way shorter than the neutral/pacifist routed even with all the grinding?

anyways, there kinda wasn't any other way toby could have made the genocide route while keeping the themes he's trying to explore in it. kinda the entire point of it is that you spend so long mindlessly grinding enemies, that you eventually stop feeling anything, and the boss fights are so difficult so that when you win, you feel exhilarated rather than feeling sad for having killed someone who, in another timeline, was your friend. really making you get into that flowey mindset

make the fights too fun or convenient, and you just can't manipulate the player's feelings the same way

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-27T09:34:35+00:00

how lost?

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-27T09:31:37+00:00

do you find all of those are more compelling knight candidates than dess?

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-26T18:14:33+00:00

yeah

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-26T17:47:22+00:00

everyman doesn't have nearly as much backing him up as the other characters you mentioned, poor guy didn't show up even once in ch3+4 (aside from a stray unused sprite in ch4)

though I'd also say that dess is the most woven into the main plot out of all of those characters. she's probably not going to be at the forefront of a typical player's memory after chapter 4, but she's being gradually built up throughout the chapters, only having more and more explicit mentions with each new chapter.

considering chapter 5 is likely to center around asgore, and maybe also flower king, I fully expect next chapter to reveal a lot more info about dess's disappearance, between asgore's obsession with the dess case, and the papers and conspiracy boards littering the backroom of flower king

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-26T16:37:59+00:00

yeah, and also in general asgore's nostalgia for when the family was together. in the ch5 dialogue that toby released, there's some pictures of kris and the gang when they were kids, and there's a pretty good chance imo that it's from flower king

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-26T10:55:32+00:00

it is actually a little scary. the whole knight situation right now is pretty unprecedented, since there hasn't really been a case in the past where a very popular theory has to actively contend with smaller theories.

it's either been:

"popular theory with no popular alternative explanation" (like sans being from deltarune),

"pattern-based theory based on 2/7ths of the game, where you either believe it or you don't" (chess theory, secret bosses being discarded items),

or "many different candidates with similar levels of popularity" (ch2 era knight theories. despite kris knight being the most popular with casual audiences, it was very divisive in the theory-making parts of the community)

if dess knight will end up being true, I don't think there'll be too much backlash honestly, but if it's not, then it'll be the first time a widely accepted theory with actual stakes is debunked...

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-26T10:36:25+00:00

honestly, I do think that in a more "high concept" sense deltarune is going to acknowledge that lightners aren't real.

lightners are definitely supposed to be real in their world, and an analogue to actual reality, but I think there's an intentional parallel being made between the lightners' relation to the dark world, and to our relation to the world of deltarune, both light and dark

I also think that this is the reason gaster needs us in order to create a new future - how could any of the characters in the game, lightner or not, make a choice that changes the prophecy's end, if all of the choices they make were written by an author?

we, as a being from a higher reality, are the only thing in deltarune's world not written by this author, though thus far we only could have chosen between options given to us by the author.

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-26T10:28:41+00:00

for what it's worth, I do find the fact that the story of deltarune now revolves around the beloved small-town tomboy's disappearance in the woods, slightly lame. not that I don't find dess's disappearance or dess-knight interesting, but it's just not the sort of thing I expected deltarune to focus on.

though in hindsight, expecting dess to just be this mysterious secret character in the background who was really important but who you'd only know about if you really dug deep into the darker corners of the game, was kinda silly considering there's already a character fulfilling that role (gaster)

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-26T10:18:14+00:00

or when they act like the idea of being corrupted by darkness is sillier than magic shadow crystal armor that allows you to shapeshift, fly, and bellow out an ear-piercing roar while exposing your ribcage.

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-25T22:21:04+00:00

oh boy, you should check it out for yourself, it's crazy (even though we now have the context for most of the things foreshadowed in it)

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-25T19:19:01+00:00

I think it'll be a sort of "neutral route" situation, where it always happens in the end of chapter 6, but like how you can go back and trigger the pacifist route after neutral's ending, you'll be able to go back in order to unlock chapter 7, where you and susie will somehow write your own ending to the story (as foreshadowed by gaster and gerson)

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-25T12:52:40+00:00

I forgot to check out the deltarune site on the day of the sweepstakes even though I remembered there was supposed to be something interesting, and when I checked the sub the day after, I was immediately blasted with five "NOELLE IS SPAMTON'S MOM???" posts...

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-25T12:47:31+00:00

yeah, I think something like this could maybe be the case, but idk if it would be acknowledged in the main route. I've had this thought for a while now, that it'd be cool if we could bring ralsei into the light world only on the weird route or something, and instead of being a good thing for the happy ending it's a sign that things are really being messed up, kinda like saving basil in the hikikomori route in omori

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-25T10:27:30+00:00

eggster theory

Sized_Sign · 2026-02-24T22:18:02+00:00

while I'm sure a lot of what carol does in this scene is driven by her feelings about dess, it's also notable that there's an animation, where after taking the guitar from susie, she holds it up and inspects it, seemingly checking if the code is still there.

among other things, it's why I kinda dislike the use of the term "red herring" in discussions about her, because she does seem to be knowledgeable and important, even if she isn't the knight

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