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.

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. 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