u/Dangerous-Worth-1980

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Disclaimer: This article has spoilers for Chapter 5 and Chapter 5 Weird Route. It also assumes Dess is the Knight and Gaster will play a major antagonist force within Deltarune. 

When talking about the two central mysteries of Deltarune (Dess and Gaster), people usually treat them as two different things with only minimal overlap. People know that the Knight (dess) is connected to Gaster (the hand hole hands, Shelter being sped up 666% having Gaster noises etc), but they don’t really go into the thematic of why that is. It’s common to see people in the fandom imagine that the Knight subplot and the Gaster subplot are two separate things, but let me be clear they’re very much telling the same story.

A Game Of Play

In Chapter 5 it is revealed to us that Kris made the Flower King Dark World. Which is quite interesting because of how much Chapter 5 Flower Kingdom parallels Chapter 1 Card Kingdom. 

The Fields of Hopes and Dreams / The Garden of Hopes and Dreams (literally just remix tracks of each other)
The Rudinn / Floradinn
The Egg rooms are EXACTLY the same.

Yes, what I’m suggesting is that Kris made Card Kingdom. Now this isn’t very new to the theorist space u/kenomacreature on tumblr made a very compelling case for this pre chapter 5. But with the new information in hand that Kris created two dark worlds, it’s not a big leap in logic that they also created Card Kingdom too.

Another thing we learn is that the Knight was probably involved with the original dark world too, and wouldn’t it be so perfectly symmetrical for Kris and Knight to each have three dark worlds under their name?  Especially since it’s seems so back and worth

Original Dark World: Knight
Chapter 1: Kris
Chapter 2: Knight
Chapter 3: Kris
Chapter 4: Knight
Chapter 5: Kris 

Mapping it out like this it seems like it’s a little back and forth between the two. A sort of playground game where one side does this and the other side does that (my infinity is bigger than YOUR infinity etc).  Speaking of which.

*Time flies... Seems like just yesterday you and that girl had everyone here lined up.
* Queen on her side, King on your side, Tenna in back... Oh, it was chaos, CHAOS!
* Heh, only kids like you two would take a laptop home just to play make believe.
-Ramb Chapter 3

Not only this is more evidence for Kris Card Kingdom (Both Tenna and King on Kris’s side), but it shows a juvenile make-believe game pre dark worlds between Kris and the Girl. And let me be clear, Dess is the girl that Ramb is talking about.

Even ignoring how much of Dess is in Chapter 3 (Tenna just saying her name out loud, raise your bat, knight). Sure it could be Noelle, but what would be gained narratively to this statement if Noelle was the girl? We already know that she and Kris were close without this statement. It being Dess would add way more to Dess and Kris relationship.  Showing a strong bond from childhood that persists all the way to the present. A strong enough bond that Kris is willing to go along to the countdown to the end of the world.

Kris and Dess.
The Cage and the Knight
Still playing that child’s make-believe play all those years later

But that play is merely an echo of a greater game being played

(Note I’m not saying that the Knight’s plan is just to play their game with Kris (the kidnapping plot etc) but I feel like their conflict with Kris is supposed to echo that make-believe game between them as children.)

The legend of this world. <DELTARUNE.>

On October 30th 2018, we were contacted by a mysterious voice from the void. That voice then connects to the world of DELTARUNE. We learn of a prophecy whisper among time and space.

On September 17th 2021, we were then contacted again by this mysterious voice, who connected us to the second field.

On June 4th 2025, we once again were connected by that voice for the third episode and fourth fate. By the end of the fourth fate the voice met us again and congratulated us on our compilation of the halfway mark. Then that same voice proudly declares that the entire experience that we played through was his “DELTARUNE”.

Let’s cut to the chase, we are quite literally playing Gaster’s game. Every time a new chapter drops he connects to the game. Before chapter 5’s weird route, these tweets might have been seen as some weird meta thing like Flowey’s tweets before Undertale. But with the ending of chapter 5’s weird route it is quite more literal. As we see an old crt screen asking us for Chapter 7 Side B. I have to clarify that this is not an essay about if Hometown/light world is “real” but the point is to show that Gaster in some way literally connects us to Deltarune and that he knows how many chapters there are.

But what would be a game without a player? That is where we come in. Gaster needs us because “Deltarune shines brightly with our hope.” No matter what we do, if we fight the knight or not, if we collect the shadow crystals or not, if we break the prophecy with the weird route or not. At the end of Chapter 4 Gaster will still say “WELL DONE”. The only times it changes is if we collect the eggs or do that plus doing none of the “marks”. Still Gaster seems more interested in our actions than frustrated. “WHAT ARE YOU”

That being interested in things rather than the frustration trait of Gaster is quite interesting. Since at the beginning of chapter 1 our wonderful creation (vessel) was discarded and being inserted into our new vessel Kris. Gaster with all his power doesn’t seem to mind this development. Almost like this was the plan all along… but I digress the point is we are in a new vessel, Kris.  

Who, interesting enough, is ½ of the plot with the Knight, the same knight who has connections with Gaster and the prophecy (fate is approaching... and it is not on your side.).

Again it’s that thematic symmetry. Us, the player with kris, and Gaster the creator with the knight (although I don’t think gaster is controlling knights like we are with kris).

The Protagonist and the Antagonist

Dess and Kris’s little game between childhood friends is the game we are playing between us and Gaster.

Come Follow Me Into The Dark

So far we only talked about Gaster and Dess' connections on their macro representation to each other by both “playing a game” with Us and Kris. But what about them as individuals? What thematic connections do they have on that level?  Of course these two are the most mysterious individuals in Deltarune so there is some conjecture from now on. But I feel like Noelle Chapter 5 Weird Route Monologue paints a very common point between these two characters.  

*Since Dess left...
* All I've been doing has just been...
* Marching down my path.
* Staying quiet. Getting good grades.
* It feels like... I've just been watching myself through glass.
* Watching someone else move me through my life.
* That's why I want... to do something crazy.

Not only did this monologue add to the theory that Dess simply didn’t just get lost/kidnapped but it also adds a possible motivation for why Dess left. If we take what we know about Dess from her room we can clearly see signs of a rebellious girl. The punk rock aesthetics in contrast to the neat holiday aesthetics, the broken items around the room, the canned food. All paints a picture of a girl who is just fed up with Carol's lifestyle. Who wants something more than just Hometown.

*I always wanted to go someplace new, you know?
* ... And Dess... always told me she'd take me.

That desire to leave manifested in her interest in the mysterious Shelter with her taking Kris there and her having the code to the Shelter on her guitar.  We know that the Knight showed up when Dess went missing at that Original Dark World all those years ago.

*H-huh? So wait, that Dark World from a long time ago...
* And Cyber World... they were both…
* ... made by the Knight?
* How long has the Knight been making fountains?
* Making people disappear...?
* I... don't know. This doesn't make sense.
* The Knight... I thought they only showed up…
* ... alongside the heroes... right?
* (Kris... did something... happen all that time ago?)
* (And that's... what made your dad... end up like that?)

Could Dess, wanting to break out of her stagnant hometown life and her interest in the dark, like her sister in the Weird route “Want to do something crazy.”

But there’s also someone who is interested in the dark and unknown.
Someone who’s interested in the dark for a very long time.

DARK
DARKER
YET DARKER
THE DARKNESS KEEPS GROWING
THE SHADOWS CUTTING DEEPER

Now Gaster's connection to Darkness is pretty obvious. It's one of the first things we know about him. Gaster’s interest in the dark, unlike Dess, doesn't come from a teenage rebellious desire to break free of a stagnant rule but more of a scientist's interest and curiosity of the unknown. But like Dess that desire of the unknown seems to completely consume him.  He fell into his creation and by gerson statements was consumed by his work.

* However, his life...
* Was cut short.
* One day, he fell into his creation, and...
* Will Alphys end up the same way?

*The story, it became so grand, so overwhelming,
*Some say it swallowed up the author himself.

Even though their motivations may differ for seeking it, Gaster and Dess are both individuals who are obsessed with the unknown and darkness. So much so that one shatters themselves across space and time. And the other became lost in it.

This connection to darkness and unknown explains both of their ties to creepypastas and hidden video game secrets. With Gaster being only found with specific fun value events and Dess secret gumball machine.GUARDIAN

Since these two are our antagonists, what is their ideological clash against our heroes? Well it’s simple really. Look at the Knight and their complete disregard for darkners. Their killing of Tenna, Flowery, Jackenstein. To the Knight the Darkners are just what they are in reality, just objects.  This trait could be seen with Dess even before she became the Knight with the broken objects everywhere in the room. Deltarune asks the question of “Can you actually feel things like compassion from fictional things?”. The knight simply retorts that “No, they are not real, so who cares.”

Gaster too reflects this conflict. He may call the lightners “WONDERFUL” but when the worst route is being played, as an innocent girl and her childhood friend are put through hell. Does he do anything to stop it? No, of course not, they’re just video game characters.

We, like in Undertale, could either validate or reject our antagonist ideology. We could either take great care in our character making sure they have the best outcome, recruit all the darkners, fight all the shadow crystal's boss, or we could reject that and treat them as tools for a greater purpose.

Before I go I want to bring up on September 15, 2021, on a Deltarune steam toby showed a scraped game main theme piano sketch. Which he describe the use of said main theme piano sketch 

"The arrangement is still really early, but I created this thinking of an animated intro for the game, similar to Wild Arms. I still see it in my head when I listen to the song." "The best part would have been at the end when everyone is running up the staircase as the silhouettes of the bosses from all the chapters show up, and the Knight, standing in a white door at the top of the stairs, turns around and looks at them..." – Toby

I’ve been obsessed with this statement ever since it came out. It’s one of the only looks into the endgame of Deltarune. It involves Knight and White Door. That white door connects to Gaster since that's how we enter the Mystery Man Room all those years ago.
The point of this essay is that the Knight and Gaster are not simply just two different subplots with minimum overlap but one central conflict at the heart of DELTARUNE.
Thank you for reading this if you read this far.

TLDR
-We and Gaster are playing the same childhood game between Kris and Dess
-Dess and Gaster are both consumed by the dark and unknown which explains their tied to creepypastas
-Dess and Gaster both represent an emotional disconnect between fiction which goes against our heroes who value that emotional fiction.