Deltarune

Toby depicts religion in a very uplfiting light. I think a lot of queer people view religion as inherently oppressive, but Undertale and Deltarune have nearly unconditionally positive depictions of the concept and also have many rather forward-facing, openly queer characters. Noelle is in the choir and the gay royal gaurd guys from Undertale are attending church in Deltarune (seemingly debunking Toriel homophobia theory, something I was admittedly rather fond of at one point and still hold some sympathy for). In UTDR, religion has almost none of the negative connotations in real life; Father Alvin explicitly states that sin is not a concept in their religion. Church is a place for the community to gather and seems closer to a secular social event than a religious happening in the way Americans often think of them. The characters inside the church don't dress all that differently than normal for the ocassion, with Jockington going in the same clothes he's always in. The mother of the Cattenheimer family brings in a foam finger for her Catty's recital, and Catty doesn't make an effort to dress up or even memorize the reading. Kris and Susie are made to dress up by Toriel, which makes sense considering her apparent devotion to the faith and general vibe of being a woman that likes to do things the "proper" way. The monsters in the choir also dress up, which makes sense considering that they've volunteered to join the choir.

* This scene is, more likely than not, primarily meant to be amusing (which it succeeds at, in my opinion); however, Toby has a penchant for using humor to other ends at times. Think of all the spamtenna stuff that seems like a joke, such as spamton mentioning a relationship going "SOUTH OF THE BORDER" in the Spamton Sweepstakes, and then the tropic of love in Deltarune playing a song called SOUTH OF THE BORDER. Good writers can do more than one thing at a time. One of the most emotional moments in Undertale has a pun embedded into it - when you die, the soul "refuses", refusing to die and literally fusing after being torn apart. I think you can get some interesting characterization from this scene.

* The Holiday Family sticks out in particular. Carol is nowhere to be seen. This is likely as a result of her mayoral duties, but I think it's telling that she is unable or unwilling to show up, even when Rudy can get his diseased ass up to go. Maybe she doesn't want to speak with him? In either case it's interesting. There isn't much to specifically say about Rudy's relationship with faith in this case. He doesn't dress up, but this might just be because his sickness makes formalwear uncomfortable. Maybe he just can't be bothered considering his condition. It's also possible that he simply doesn't like to dress up for church, much like Jockington and the royal guards. In any case, I don't think it tells you a whole lot about his character. The deepest read I can reasonably get is that he isn't particularly faithful and is just going to make Noelle happy, something which seems consistent with his current characterization. Noelle seemingly believes in the faith and enjoys it. She regularly attends and is a member of the choir, being one of the better singers from what we can gather. This may just be reputational maintainence, but it seems like an activity she finds some amount of purpose in. Perhaps she leaned on the church more after Dess disappeared? It must be pretty painful to be a christmas-themed family and then have a sister named December that went missing. This isn't a Noelle specific thing, but as of chapter 4 there isn't anything indicating that Christmas has a directly religious source in the Deltarune world. It would be kinda crazy to do this unless it's intended to add onto the Noelle is the angel theories, especially with the part of chapter 2 where she looks like she's being crucified with Queen. Dess' relationship with the hometown faith is unknowable but it stands to reason she might have been in an edgy atheist phase when she disappeared. The fact that raise your bat mentions an ark is interesting, but I don't think it tells you too much about her opinion on religion. Plenty of non-religious people make references to religious concepts

My take on WESTERN ESOTERICISM AND RELIGION in Deltarune. While I don't think this is the only or the most important line of analysis for the game, I find it interesting enough to pursue. These things don't form a coherent view of the game, I just made the connections and wanted to share them.

INTRODUCTION | TAROT | THE GREAT FLOOD | NUMEROLOGY

Kris was known to practice some type of occultism/demonology with Catti, allegedly having attempted to "SUMMON A DEMON". This is something I rarely hear theorists discuss but it seems rather important. While there aren't many references to demons particularly in most of the game, the devil/demonic motifs are rather omnipresent. The philosophers speak of the tail of hell. RAISE YOUR BAT mentions the "demon's bleeding heart"; hell's roar comes bubbling from the depths. The knight and darkness in general are very much associated with demons, which is common in Christian imagery. God is the light and truth, satan is the great deciever and thrives in darkness. When the darkness grows vast enough, you can see again in Deltarune; this could be falsely seen as light being restored, carrying a similar connotation as is used when satan is referred to as the lightbringer/lightbearer in some texts. Dess has become the embodiment of darkness and Kris is more than capable of channeling it. Who is to say that Kris didn't understand how to open a fountain prior to Deltarune? Perhaps they mistook the dark fountains for demons, or perhaps the dark world is the Deltarune world's equivalent to something like hell.

* The knife grows dull without play. Knives are the primary conduit of darkness. The knife, in Undertale, is Chara's weapon; the knife is emblematic of DETERMINATION , both the literal mechanic in-universe and the real-world concept. The knife is Kris' way of resisting the player, of attempting to overcome their circumstances. Though I'm not the most familiar with CHAOS MAGICK , it seems relevant. Most magickal practices involve intense concentration to exercise your will. In Deltarune, a known occultist focuses their will into a blade in ritual to exercise their will, to exert their determination. Some occult rituals (particularly THELEMA) involve the use of a dagger and a cup (a representative of water as an element/concept); darkness has many very well-established connections with water, coming from fountains and geyers in the case of castletown. Jevil is literally a chaos element enemy and gives the player a item one letter off from being called the devil's tail. It seems like an awful lot of coincidences to be 100% unintended, at least to me.

I have a lot of weird feelings about CATTI. There's something going on with her. The most obvious thing (other than her occult ties) is her being a black and white cat with yellow eyes and a pink streak in her hair. I suspect that FRIEND is either directly or indirectly based on Catti. Darkness is generally a symbol of demons or occult praxis, so until the dark worlds came around, Catti and Kris had the most experience with darkness by far; I can't help feeling that a predominantly black cat with prominent pink and gold in the light world might relate to the black cat with pink and gold in the dark world too. Catti still practices some form of magick, though it isn't really clear if this has been successful or not. The way Catti relates to Susie is strange to me. NOELLE is placed in a strange position in Deltarune's world. Getting closer to Susie is (as of now, anyway) the much better outcome for Susie than associating with Kris is. Catti's complete rejection of Susie and alleged care of Noelle are, to the audience, rather incongruent positions. I see no reason for Catti to be aware of what's going on with Kris, but her hatred of Susie seems somewhat misplaced.

There's also some connections to CARTOMANCY . The Star card seems somewhat reflective of the "peculiar book" thought to describe the shadow crystals. The text reads: "And so wept the fallen star, making rivers with its tears. Then, slowly, from the bitter water, something grew. It looked like glass. " The Rider-Waite depiction of the Star shows a blonde woman pouring water into a lake/river under some stars, seemingly with her eyes closed. To me, these seem symbolically rather similar. From what we know of the Holidays, Dess is likely blonde. Noelle is blonde and Carol's hair is a greyish yellow color of some sort. The woman on the card is emptying two jugs of their water, creating "rivers" in a sense. While the woman on the card is not literally crying, the general imagery is rather similar in essence. The knight is probably dess and both are rather notably connected to stars as a motif. This snippet from the book parallels the Star card pretty well in my view. The Tower depicts a tower rising from the dark that is torn down by lightning (light striking down darkness), which could have inspired the fight with the titan in chapter 4. The Star shows the knight, then the Moon shows the knight at their full powers, with the roaring taking place. The Knight has overtaken the light as seen by something like the moon being in front of the sun. Their tears fall and the water rises, with the towers rising from the water.

* The Sun could potentially be representative of chapter 5. The card depicts a baby on a horse with a red flag in front of a sunflower. The flowers, through this lens, are the garden referred to by Gerson. The child is representative of ASGORE, who is a rather nostalgiac man; he has VHS copies of the cancelled cowboy show that sparked WOODY THEORY, he obsesses over "showing everyone what happened" with Dess, and he chases after Toriel in a rather obviously hopeless way - he wishes for an earlier, more youthful time in his life. The horse is a knight in chess and is commonly associated with knights in general, which makes sense considering that Asgore is likely going to fulfill the role of the knight (opening fountains) in chapter 5. The red flag could be representative of the "inferno of jealousy" which is further emphasized by the bright sun in the background.

* The Judgement Card seems like it could be tied to THE ANGEL . The card depicts grey people on towers similar to the ones seen in the Moon and the Tower , looking up to an angel in prayer as the water rises. To me, this seems similar to the role of the Angel in Undertale and potentially Deltarune. The grey people aren't seen in the other cards in the Rider-Waite deck, which is has some interesting implications if they are the inspiration for elements of Deltarune. The most immediate association many UTDR fans have with grey people are GONERS , but that doesn't seem particularly relevant in this case. The water being present makes me think Deltarune. The most immediate conclusion I can reach is that THE ROARING and THE ANGEL'S HEAVEN are the same thing, or that the Angel and the Knight are the same at least. The card is followed by the World. The world is depicted as female, lining up with the legend of the Delta rune, with the world "drawing her final breath," before the heroes arrive. Jockington also says the following: " To be Susies' friend, is to be, the World's Enemy. Which, is sick. I respect, your Game, Kris. But if you hurt, Catti, or, Catti's feelings, You will be up a Ball without a Court. " This is some interesting dialog. If the World card is representative of the earth "drawing her final breath" as caused by the roaring, being its enemy seems like a good thing. I would not put too much stock in most of these readings based on esoterica, but they're interesting to me so I wanted to share. More will come if I can think of them.

The observations in this segment were kickstarted by Guilty Flygon's video on the symbolism of glass and water. Flygon is generally an excellent theorist and you should watch his videos but that's beside the point. He points out how the ROARING seems to be a parallel to the biblical great flood. Pluey was treated as a joke by the fans once chapters 3 and 4 finally came out, but I think that was a bit foolish. The pluey minigame is about taking "the chosen ones" to an ark. There are only 2 places that an ark is mentioned in the entire game, and the other one is RAISE YOUR BAT . There's clearly something significant about this, especially considering that Toby made a point of mentioning Pluey's implementation. The mention of being guided through the waves in raise your bat, to me, suggests a massive quantity of water, much like the flood. The biblical ark involved the delivery of the chosen ones (the animals and Noah's family) to the ark, resisting the waves that surely came along with the flood. In the biblical context, the flood was God purging the world of flawed creation. What would a great flood accomplish in Deltarune? It seems to be almost the opposite, the evil force of the Deltarune world ultimately winning and reshaping the world in its own image. Deltarune almost reminds me of an inverted form of certain Christian concepts. The whole situation with Gaster feels almost archontic to me but I haven't really thought it out enough to elaborate too much

UTDR features some potential NUMEROLOGICAL References. GASTER is often represented by the number 6, but especially 666, the supposed "number of the beast". 666 is also referred to as the "number of a man" in the Bible; 666 is also considered an angel number. The hex code of the mystery man's floor is 3 repitions of 166, and the binoculars in mancountry show the player an area with a hex code that consists of 3 repitions of 167. The man and Gaster seem related, but they could be in opposition to one another; the man stands behind the tree and offers an egg, a "forbbiden" object as seen by the COMPLETE WITHOUT ISSUE achievement being voided when you collect them. Note that 7 is viewed in many Christian traditions as the number of completeness or wholeness, with 6 being representative of the flawed nature of man. There are also 7 chapters in the game. 1225, the number associated with DESS has implications as well. 1 is the start of the game, 2 is the chapter the weird route starts, and 5 appears to be the culimation of the weird route, taking NOELLE to the festival; summing the first 3 digits of 1225 gives you 5, the final digit. I'll talk about spamton more before too long but I think 1997 is also interesting from this perspective. The first digit in 1997 is reflected in the last digit, but not perfectly; it is changed into an imperfect reflection, much as the dark worlds do.

* 3 is notable enough to have its own section. 3 heroes, 3 triangles in the delta rune, 3 monsters in the Dreemur family (which are themselves an interesting mess I'll likely write about more later on), 3 digits in the number of a man. Summing the digits of this number gives you 18; subtracting 1 from this number (as you do from 167 to get the color of mystery man's floor) gives you 17, the number of the lab entry that likely introduced us to dark fountains. Delta itself is a greek letter that forms a triangle; rivers (like the ones mentioned in the peculiar book in the egg room) form deltas as they flow out towards larger bodies of water, perhaps a sea such as the one a rather infamous song is coming from. There are 3 women in the holiday family. The youngest daughter may be the angel and the eldest is likely the knight. It seems like, in the past, Kris, Dess and Noelle (a group of 3) may have been a rather tight social unit. Kris is a human and Noelle is certainly a monster. Dess is not a prince, but being the knight would surely make her "of the dark". While you could use this to make up some theory about Dess being trans or something I think that it's just a coincidence and likely has no bearing on the actual plot of the game. It just goes to show you how prominent three really is in Deltarune (and in most fiction, to be honest). As times goes on I may add more instances here if they interest me

Ships in Undertale/Deltarune

Shipping is an interesting topic to me. I think it's particularly fun in UTDR because of how interesting/developed most characters feel, there's a niche ship for every little freak that likes the games. Below, you will find my opinions on various ships, sorted based on the characters involved. If a ship is listed in an earlier character's section, it will generally not be in the sections of the other character involved. Also, for the most part I'll be avoiding the polycule ships because I find them annoying. It's natural to want to have more characters in a ship because we like all the characters but often it just kinda feels like slop

KRIS

By default anything involving Kris is kind of evil because you're puppetting them so much. Essentially any ships that take place during Deltarune's played story are nonconsentual by nature on their end. The most interesting ships involving Kris - necessarily, in my opinion - lean into this discomfort and make the audience feel bad for them in some way. Obviously, there are nice pairings for Kris and some versions of ships that don't come across as torturous or even vaguely unpleasant for them, but I find a lot of these fluffier options a bit boring. Kris is the angst engine

KRIS/RALSEI (Kralsei): This is one of my favorite Deltarune ships because it's so evil and actively causes Kris much suffering I think. I like Kris a lot and I wish the best for them, but it's pretty undeniable that kralsei is one of the more interesting ships that has signficant support in-game. It's a pretty visceral gross way to demonstrate the effect of the player's control over Kris. Toby is an evil bastard for making kralsei stuff seem like the path of least resistance. This ship is really just not good for anyone involved. Kris is being possessed and forced to act romantically with someone clearly partially modeled after their own brother and Ralsei has some confusing identity problems and is learning what affection of any sort is. Surely these two would be bad together. I've seen some people suggest that Kralsei, from Ralsei's side, is actually more Ralsei/Player, which I think is a bit silly. Chapters 3 and 4 show more mutual affection that isn't done by the player, so I think there's some ground for more wholesome versions of Kralsei. I think in a world where Kris isn't being near-constantly thrown around by the player that Kralsei would just be cute and fluffy, but it has a weird edge to it that is kinda surprising. Deltarune generally explores romance in a much more interesting way than Undertale ever even considered

KRIS/NOELLE (Kriselle? idk what people call them): Another thematically interesting ship. The snowgrave version of this ship is just delightfully cruel. Kris is forced into the "male" role in this horrible demonic marriage with Noelle, a probable lesbian (though she could, in theory, be bi, I think this would somewhat undercut the message). It's pretty powerful. I think it could really upset some people that have been in abusive relationships before, especially the thorn ring scene in chapter 4. I remember the discourse about the "deflowering" imagery, and though I don't necessarily think it was intentional, the fact that a lot of people's first instinct was to think it was in reference to sexual assault just shows you how intense of a storyline Toby set up. The snowgrave relationship between Kris and Noelle is just so uncomfortable and evil, and it's entirely the player's fault. It's what the genocide route in Undertale was trying to do, perfected. Noelle is so well set up for such a plotline too. Even in the non-snowgrave route, Noelle has unhealthy attachments, especially to Susie. I'll leave a lot of the Noelle-specific discussion to a section about her, but her strength as a character is a big part of why both versions of this ship work so well

KRIS/BERDLY (Krerdly? Birdcage is better anyway): This is another awesome torturous ship. It's just so fucking funny. I used to think it was annoying but I never realized how unpleasant it surely must be for Kris. You're forcing them to be romantic with the most annoying rancid reddit guy ever. Berdly's weird failed romance stuff with Susie and Noelle are both funny and I think it could reasonably be a set up for him to confess to Kris or something similar but I don't really care that much about it as a serious plot thing. It's funny to imagine that the normal route is birdcage happening and the weird route is evil kriselle. I think there's something to Berdly going from a closeted redditor/gamer guy to a queer individual of some sort (trans, gay, etc.) but that simply doesn't matter because birdcage is funny and it doesn't feel as cruel as kralsei or the evil kriselle route

KRIS/SUSIE (Krusie): This one is largely just pretty cute. I like it. It's some bully romance bullshit but it's still cute I think. I personally think Kris and Susie work better as friends, but I see why people see it as possibly romantic. I think there could be something like a Ralsei problem going on where she's just so used to getting no positive attention that being friends feels romantic, but I'm not really sure about it. Susie's character development is generally just a nice thing to witness. I think it would be cute for them to play piano together in a romantic way, kinda like a wholesome version of the piano scene with Kaworu and Shinji in Evangelion. I think Susie and Noelle being together would be a better ending everything considered but I still like krusie as an idea, it has its charm

NOELLE

Noelle is a strong character and I think she works well in a lot of ships. A lot of the ships I find the most interesting for her are ones that allow her to open up and be herself more. She's defined by repression and self-doubt, so I think the most interesting ships are the ones were she sheds this somewhat (with one pretty obvious counterexample)

NOELLE/KRIS (Kriselle): In theory, these two could have a very wholesome and happy relationship. The childhood friends trope stuff would make them pretty natural to put together, and I think that's part of their design. In a lot of superficial ways, kriselle makes sense; Noelle has an attraction to "scary" things, and Kris would constantly prank her and act scary. Their familes are very tight knight. Asriel and Dess were likely together, and there's a lot of evidence to suggest that Asgore and Rudy dated at one point or another (at least in the Undertale timeline). It would just feel right for them to be in a relationship, but the main story of Deltarune is going towards her and Susie being together instead. If the player chooses, they can force this heteronormative, outsider-derived idea of what is right. They can use their power to make Kris and Noelle get together. The snowgrave route is a subversion and deconstruction of a lot of common narrative tropes in this way. Noelle can get a lot of the same things from Kris and Susie, but she gets them in a completely different way. Noelle can get consentual, relatively comfortable exposure to the idea of fear and similar ideas through Susie, or she can be forced into true fear and ultimate discomfort through the power of the thornring. It's pretty unsettling and provides some insight into her character.

NOELLE/SUSIE (Suselle): This one is nice and pretty fluffy, but not without some thorns in some ways. There's that stuff about her watching Susie bully Kris that I think a lot of suselle enjoyers skip over. The first "interaction" we know of in the suselle world is Noelle literally hiding and helpessly crushing. This certainly isn't unique to Noelle; plenty of people (especially queer youth without models of healthy relationships) have similar experiences. They haven't really known eachother for long and they're already hitting it off pretty well, so I think they'd end up being good for eachother, but the earlier scene adds this background level of toxicity to their bond that I think is interesting. Their relationship is full of miscommunication and uncertainty, it reads as very realistic. I think it would be nice for them to end up getting together, but from everything we know so far, it's essentially guaranteed to end in some kind of a tragedy. I really would like to see Noelle and Susie happy but I'm kinda skeptical of it happening to be honest. Their relationship is another example of joyful queer moments but I suspect it will be made into a horrible tragedy by the time the game ends

NOELLE/CATTI (Cattelle): I used to not care about this one but I was sold on it. There's something intrinsically interesting about the choir girl character getting involved with magickal girl goth cat. I find them to be kinda compelling as a couple, but I personally am on the Catti is evil train and I think Noelle already has enough evil shit coming her way to be honest. I wish we knew more about Catti generally because I like her even if I get a feeling she's gonna turn out to be a bad force