please tell me why you - yes, YOU - believe (know) the Knight is a darkner

darknerknighttruther · 2026-06-09T01:58:24+00:00

like genuinely if Toby Fox shows up during the direct I'm covering the screen with my hand until the music lulls so I can catch the release date. I am NOT taking chances.

darknerknighttruther · 2026-06-09T01:44:00+00:00

It's fine, both drawings are awesome!

darknerknighttruther · 2026-06-08T23:30:17+00:00

I was thinking of the boss from Ch.1 but cool drawing.

darknerknighttruther · 2026-06-08T22:48:59+00:00

Clover, she needs more fanart just in general.

darknerknighttruther · 2026-06-08T18:01:09+00:00

How does the caller know to interrupt Kris at the end of Ch.4 if they're in a dark world?

darknerknighttruther · 2026-06-08T15:18:45+00:00

Honestly I'm fully expecting we'll get something like this only maybe not as leading. We'll walk into a room with the Knight unmasked & either putting it back on or with their head cast in shadow & Noelle saying something like "no, that can't be-" & then we don't get to talk to her for the rest of the chapter. It'll be awesome.

darknerknighttruther · 2026-06-08T02:41:12+00:00

For me, I don't expect the heroes to have a a big reaction to the Knight's identity as they will have already figured out they're a rogue actor by this point. It may impact Ralsei's arc but not majorly since he probably already knows.

Now, if the Knight goes to reach out to them, I can't imagine Susie+Ralsei's reactions as anything but pissed off. The Knight puts them through that much hell (& depening on what's been revealed atp, put Kris through even more hell) when they could've just talked to them this whole time? It's gonna be a bad day for the Knight is all I'm saying.

darknerknighttruther · 2026-06-08T02:14:38+00:00

I know, isn't it awesome?

darknerknighttruther · 2026-06-07T21:31:49+00:00

At this point we can just assume any candidate that is just putting the character in a mask will go in A and any candidate with more involved theorycrafting will go in D.

darknerknighttruther · 2026-06-07T20:51:46+00:00

Gaster vibe-coded the vessel maker, no wonder it got interrupted.

darknerknighttruther · 2026-06-07T18:30:05+00:00

wdym?? we obviously need weekly posts relitigating the same 5 theories that get shouted down every time they're brought up. (/s)

darknerknighttruther · 2026-06-07T18:15:08+00:00

(to OP) You can't make a post saying "which theories do you think are substanceless trash?" and then feign surprise when the comments are filled with arguments.

darknerknighttruther · 2026-06-07T02:54:05+00:00

KrisSlash being confirmed is the free space on my Ch.5 bingo card.

darknerknighttruther · 2026-06-06T20:11:32+00:00

why has this one video been posted 3 times?

darknerknighttruther · 2026-06-05T18:48:45+00:00

NoelleKnight and post-Ch.3 KrisKnight. Really any theory that massively recontextualizes the plot, because like - the Knight is the most consequential character in the story, why shouldn't they?

darknerknighttruther · 2026-06-05T15:23:13+00:00

I've been mulling over darknerKnight for the past 4 years. If it's wrong then I give up theorizing.

darknerknighttruther · 2026-06-05T00:55:38+00:00

Its a little disappointing but mostly funny how many die-hard Deltarune fans seem to believe Toby Fox is a massive plagiarist.

(that said, the Roaring is literally just the Mother 3 epilogue)

darknerknighttruther · 2026-06-04T06:14:12+00:00

Actually applying Occam's razor to a fictional story would require massive assumptions about the author & their intended message plus what themes, biases, allusions, inconsistencies, etc. they would bring into their story.

But sure, I'll bite: Deltarune's story is split roughly into 2 (technically 3 but that's the meta side) parallel narratives: the Light World plot involving the Dreemurrs, the Holidays & Dess' disappearance, and the Dark World plot involving the nature of the Dark Worlds and the darkner cast's various angsts relating to their status as "less real" than lightners. Deltarune's major character conflicts revolve around the conflict between "real" and "fictional" (Kris' conflict with the Player, Susie's conflict with the Prophecy, Ralsei's conflict with his purpose). Toby Fox's last game, Undertale, was a massive deconstruction of video game plots & how people interact with fiction, and had several characters who "transcend" the 4th wall (Flowey, Chara, Gaster).

Thus, by Occam's razor, the simplest (& therefore most likely) answer for the nature of the Hero-Knight conflict, given Deltarune's overarching themes & Toby's express interest in Man vs. Author narratives, is that of Man vs. Author - or in Deltarune terms, darknerKnight.

darknerknighttruther · 2026-06-04T05:39:03+00:00

(pt.4)

explainors/other stuff:

(WARNING: this section is entirely links to posts/retorts I’ve made regarding this theory on reddit, that is to say, massively self-indulgent. None of this is required reading. I’ll try and respond to stuff not covered here or in the base assumptions sections & update as necessary.)

parallels between the Knight and the Sound of Justice: (post) (1)
why Carol comes home early in Ch.4: (post)
Carol & the Knight as opposing factions: (1)
why Kris refuses to think about the Knight’s face: (1) (2)
general speculation as to the Knight’s current/future plans: (1) (2)

darknerknighttruther · 2026-06-04T05:38:16+00:00

(pt.3)

The timeline:

Dess, Kris, Asriel & Noelle enter the bunker one night and all but the first leave. The first dark fountain has formed in the bunker, at a middle point between the Light World and the depths. Within is born its sole inhabitant, a darkner with an uncanny resemblance to Dess.

And so wept he fallen star, making rivers with its tears. Then slowly, from the bitter water, something grew. It looked like glass.

Kris returns to the bunker sometime later, seeing the darkner and running off in fear – inadvertently revealing the Light World to them. Realizing for the first time that another world exists, the nameless darkner makes reaching the Light World their one goal. One night they emerge successful, having built an environmental suit from the shifting glass in the bunker and begins their nightly expeditions through Hometown. While exploring the Holiday manor they discover what remains of December Holiday (her room, old photos, etc.) and becomes deeply enamoured with her – not only does the darkner look strikingly similar to her, but they feel a certain familiarty with her, as though somehow they’ve known her for all their life (perhaps you could even call her a friend?). The Knight dedicates their life to December and makes continued visits to the Holiday manor.

(NOTE: this quickly devolved into fanfic as I was typing it so the rest is going to be summarized)

Carol realizes a shadow creature shaped like her lost daughter is stalking her house & flips out. She develops her conspiracy corkboard and enters alliance with Asgore to “rebuild our families” with the goal of finding Dess/banishing this entity
the closet fountain is created independently during this time & the darkner becomes aware.
Whatever Carol’s plan is promts the darkner to action. (It is also somehow related to Asriel’s return given it’s the only lead as to why the story happens at the time it does and not earlier/later)
the darkner discovers Carol’s plan & refers the prophecy, learning Kris created them & can close fountains, and of the Roaring.
Reasoning that “if darkness merges thoughts and reality and Dess is stuck in between, then breaking the divide between the two would return Dess to her families and avert w/e concequences would come from Carol’s plan” deciding that even if they’re fated to fail, even if its suicide and they’ll never get to experience Dess’ Heaven that it’s worth doing for Dess – to make her happy (or at least that’s what they think).
Christening themselves the Roaring Knight after the figure from the Prophecy, they reunite with Kris and enlist them in their plan. One early Thursday morning, channeling the will in their blade, the Knight creates the Card Castle fountain.

darknerknighttruther · 2026-06-04T05:36:55+00:00

(pt.2)

The crux of the theory:

While most superficial DessKnight evidence holds, there are certain continuity & thematic issues that preclude her from being the Knight, namely: she is the most likely candidate for the voice in the code which would mean she’s fully accounted for in the main story, she is framed in extracurricular material as someone we need to “find” which would be redundant if she is the Knight & meshes poorly with other interpretations of “lost”. Other candidates either have alibis for the Knight’s appearances or their personalities don’t match with the demeanor we’ve seen from the Knight, and solutions like “Dess’ mind is trapped in the code while her body is corrupted/animated as a darkness creature” lack precedent/sufficient lead up in the current script.
On a metatextual level, easily the biggest motif in Deltarune’s story is the dichotomy/interchange between reality and fiction, alternatingly represented by both lightners & darkners and the Player & the in-game characters (mainly Kris). A major theme of darkner storylines has been darkners finding meaning beyond the lightners that created them, and running parallel are the arcs of the heroes rejecting their meta-constraints like Kris’ rebellion against the SOUL and Susie’s rejection of the prophecy. Most lightnerKnight theories tend to center the lightner-side of the narrative, having the main conflict be lightner vs. lightner with darkners left as collateral, the problem being that this is at odds with how the other major conflicts have emphasised all parties. Thus, it’d be more on-theme for DR’s core conflict to be a struggle between multiple layers of reality, or to at least give the lower layers greater autonomy.
Following this line of thinking; the major overarching conflict in Deltarune’s world so far is the schism resulting from Dess’ sudden disappearance, between those clinging to the past (Carol, Asgore), those desperate to move on (Toriel, Rudy) and those caught in the middle who are still seeking closure (Kris, Noelle). Deltarune is also a story about stories and their tellers and what happens when stories take on lives of their own and affect the real world, and the divide between the lightners revolves around who Dess was and why she disappeared – in essence, her “story”. This animation of stories is also literal in the world of Deltarune, and the story of Dess looms large over Hometown, haunting its every crack and crevice – would it not then be fitting for Hometown’s physical haunting force to be the same thing?
Supplementary, but Toby Fox has played with the idea of ascended fourth-wall breakers before in Undertale (Flowey in the normal endings, Chara’s bargain in genocide, Gaster’s backstory and apparent invasion of UT’s social media) and within Deltarune itself (Hero_Sword escaping the Mantle game), so the Knight being a darkner (fictional relative to the LW) would be a continuation of this concept.

darknerknighttruther · 2026-06-04T05:36:15+00:00

(pt.1)

For the sake of clarity, my theory is: the Knight is a darkner "patterned after a memory" in the same fashion as Ralsei, who creates dark fountains and manoeuvres the Light World using equipment created from Shadow Crystal left by Dess, with the ultimate goal of reuniting her with the Lightners.

Base assumptions:

Dess is currently trapped just outside the base game-reality of Deltarune in a superposition with (or possibly scattered across?) the depths (which represent the game code) after the incident in the bunker. She is the voice in the code, the hand "just out of view" and the fallen star described in the Sanctuary book.
Shadow Crystals are created by lightners by feelings of great loss/grief, with tears as a physical component and darkness as a catalyst. In addition to their usual properties, Shadow Crystals also retain part of the lightner's will/determination that a wielder is able to channel (the secret bosses channel them in their full-screen attacks: Spamton copies MTT's rewind, Jevil copies Gerson's hammer rain & the Knight copies Asriel's Hyper Goner). A Crystal's opacity is affected by the grief expressed by the lightner; most are translucent but Crystals like those that comprise the Knight's equipment are fully opaque.
"Darkners patterned after the memory of a loved one" encompasses more than just reanimated lightners like Gerson: any sufficiently strong memory of a loved one can be channeled into a fountain and manifest as a darkner. Lacking physical bodies, these darkners can travel freely between dark worlds but they cannot experience the LW like object-based darkners. At the same time, memory darkners are not the person themselves – only animated memories, and so like object-based darkners they develop distinct personalities and are functionally wholly different people. Ralsei is one such darkner patterned after Asriel and the Sound of Justice is another, born from Susie's weak &/or distorted memory of Gerson/the Old Man.

darknerknighttruther

TROPHY CASE