Gonerification Finished in CH5, and in CH6 IMAGE_FRIEND will be the Second Coming of Jockington. [4000+ WORDS] [GIF Related]
I believe that the Gonerification has finished in CH5, that the Forgotten Man, Normal_NPC, and Jockington cease to exist by the end of CH5, and that this Gonerification will pave the way for FRIEND to gain prominence. I shall attempt to share and convince of these beliefs here and what they will mean for CH6. Spoiler Warning for CH5’s Normal and Weird Routes.
For clarity, allow me to explain that what I mean by Gonerification, is essentially referring to the ceasing of existence in the universe of Deltarune.
Those who become goners no longer naturally possess a stable encounterable presence anywhere in-game; the memories of those who knew the character either get erased, replaced, or become nonsense in reality, and all that remains of them are the effects of the actions they took and a rare namesake made untraceable by the forgetting. As Goner Kid said best, for them the worlds change so that everything is the same, except that they don’t exist, and that’s terrifying.
I.E. Undertale Gaster. In 98.4% of the versions of the Undertale Universe, no proof can be found of a man with his name or face having ever existed, and in the rest, the only proof comes from fellow goners, who also do not exist outside of in 1 room half the time or worse. No non-goner appears to remember him. All that remains of his existence are the Core that he created and his namesake of the Gaster Blaster.
Sorry to keep you waiting; here are the newly fully gonerized characters of CH5.
GONER A: THE FORGOTTEN MAN
Ah, Classic Sr. Forgotten Man, already erased from character memory as early as CH2, when Kris’ first thoughts after receiving his gift of an Egg were that “There was not a man here.” What an ungrateful brat! Their existence would never be found naturally; no way Toby expected casual players to rapidly walk between 2 rooms because they noticed the music reset when they walked back from 1 room to the previous room for fun, or any step of the CH3 Version, on their first playthrough. They’ve nailed the being-erased-from-memory trait, even granting us our first vivid look at the perspective of forgetting a Goner in CH4, through Kris’s attempt at trying to draw who they saw behind the tree gradually losing its sense of purpose and creating nonsense as their memories of him distorted into different images and they gradually began to remember having never seen anybody behind the tree, before they replaced the nonsense with the tree, the only thing they could recall ever existing in the position that they attempted to draw, and the only remnants of the man’s existence being their caused feelings for Kris of frustration at trying to draw something that doesn’t exist; the desire to finish drawing that nothing; and the egg that he left for them.
Despite seemingly having fulfilled all their erasure from natural existence, memory, and world shifts to no longer exist and leaving untraceable remnants steps for gonerification, they actually have flubbed it at the cessation of existence step for all 4 prior chapters, clinging to existence through using their ownerships and gifts of actually existing eggs to keep interacting with the Kris who manages to find him in every nowhere that he ends up at, coming back every time after Kris forgets his existence.
Until Chapter 5, where he has finally run out of eggs to give to Kris and has waved his last goodbye, leaving Kris to forget him for the last time and remember having never looked for him, his purpose fulfilled, and the only remnants of him having ever existed being the 5 eggs Kris has because of him and the heavy pain of never again being able to see this man that they know nothing of by mind, yet know by the melancholy in their heart, by us. Congratulations to the Forgotten Man, for fully becoming a goner and ceasing to exist.
Forgotten Man reveals 2 significant details about how Gonerization works in Deltarune. Firstly, speech may be heavily damaged by the process as a side effect, and the severity of the damage is location-based, as the Forgotten Man was only capable of speech in Mancountry and mute in every other Egg Room. Secondly, CH4 reveals that the forgetting of a Goner may not be instantaneous and that minds can struggle against the deletion, although what they try to remember of them may be distorted by the procedure.
For counterarguments, some may claim that Kris remembering never having looked for the Forgotten Man in CH5 is not a sign that Kris forgot him but just a way of wording how “they” didn’t search for him but “you,” the player, made them search. I do not agree with this interpretation, for I think it’d be strange for Toby to so vividly highlight the way the memory of him fades in CH4 and put emphasis in CH3-CH5 on how while the man will fade from memory, the small actions and feelings the two of them do and have for each other, like Kris’ Kindness, Kris’ desire to paint the man who became unseen, and Kris’ weight of melancholy, will be remembered, only to cure the man of being forgotten at the very end of their story about how minor the memories of who people were are in comparison to the memories of what people have made people feel.
GONER B: NORMAL_NPC
Normal_NPC, AKA Striped Bird, the one Gaster Follower to not have received a Monster Counterpart until Deltarune, who has boomed in infamy due to CH5 taking him from being some nameless weirdo ignored by the rest of Hometown that blocks you off from places like the library and making him the Hometown butcher, revealing that he diced up Onionsan and tries to sell them to unsuspecting teenagers disguised as Takoyaki at a stand he set up as a service to the Gaster Cartel. I would wonder what nefarious act he would be committing next… if the Weird Route did not reveal that he will no longer be able to hurt or have hurt anyone, because by the evening of the Festival he no longer exists
Interacting with his stand during the Evening-set Weird Festival has Susie reveal she remembers him never being at his stand during the day. We know from the normal route that in the morning the stand was still completely down, all its parts laid out on the floor, sauces not brought out, and the takoyaki still boxed; yet, in the Weird Festival, it’s as set up as in the normal route. If it is true that he just bailed out on the stand for the Weird timeline, that would mean that somebody bothered to set up all 7 complex pieces of his stand, bring sauces to it, unbox the takoyaki, and not give it a taste test to determine that the stand should be closed from the first bite that would make them think, “Bleh! The hell is that? That’s not takoyaki! Disgusting, close this down now and find out where the hell this bird weirdo is and where this came from,” and then still not get any of the many unoccupied kind residents of Hometown to sit at the stand for him. That would not make sense, so I think it’s likelier that he did set up the stand, did sit at it, and did try to sell Onionsan, only to cease to exist at some point between midday and the evening, and for Susie’s memories to shift so that everything was the same, except that he did not exist and was changed to being remembered as not being present.
Other signs of his Gonerification include how nobody alive in Hometown has ever cared about him besides when you bring people to him and the fact that his communication has always been messed up in each chapter that he appears in, as well as the fear and nervousness he showcases in his last moments of CH5’s normal route. He immediately goes to correct himself the moment he slips up in presenting the takoyaki as being 2G, a currency that he should not know about because it’s from Undertale, by pretending that he meant to say his goods are for free, and even if you do take a Takoyaki ball from him, trying to say goodbye to him results in him asking, “Didn’t you want to octopus?” a question that comes off as rather desperate to me for him to be saying to somebody that did octopus, as if he has some thought that terrifies him of you no longer octopussing him.
I also doubt that his ceasing to exist is Weird Route-exclusive. None of the few other differences unique to the timeline where we know that he stops existing that we caused, like Noelle knowing about the soul, us putting the thorn in Noelle’s finger, or Kris hiding in bed from the world you made for them, are supernatural enough to just cause a man like that to vanish altogether; they’re not even enough to make his boss, Gaster, care enough to say anything new in his report of CH4. The Weird Route is still “abortable” after this information is revealed, so this erasure still can occur in a normalish world. Even if he were going to show up in CH7 Side B for the Gaster Cartel, Toby wouldn’t have to foreshadow it by removing his existence from memory in just the weird route because players already know that he’s evil and aiding Gaster through his murder of Onionsan, so few would be confused if Gaster himself beamed him up to Bikini Bottom to fight you.
I suspect Toby included his Gonerization in the Weird Festival because there will be nowhere for him to insinuate that Normal_NPC no longer exists in CH6. The only action that he ever took that alive characters witnessed was making that Takoyaki stand for the festival, a place that is to be torn down by the next day, a place that nobody cared about besides one forgettable customer that would not be expected to speak of Normal_NPC even if he did still exist in CH6. The stand itself is the only thing the characters care about him through, so commentary on the stand while it’s still up is the only way to show that they’ve forgotten about him. His lack of presence has made it so that there are no places or characters that would look noticeably off if Normal_NPC does not exist in their rooms or their dialogue, unlike…
GONER C: JOCKINGTON
Jockington, the silliest potential goner around, grower of the beard, and the only one on this list to not only go mentioned by name in this chapter, but to have nothing directly alluding to them having disappeared or having been forgotten anywhere in the chapter, unlike Normal_NPC or the Forgotten Man. What could lead me to believe that he’s gone too? A lot.
Firstly, during the Evening’s Weird Festival, Susie’s primary goal was to cheer Kris up, make them laugh, make them open up. She tried as hard as she could to make Kris feel better with every interaction; she even completely concealed her new dislike for Toriel and even cooperated with Sans by setting him up and fake-laughing at a shitty “Ice Cream Sans” joke. Now, if Susie was desperate enough to enlist Sans’ help at relieving Kris of their pain, why the hell didn’t she cite any of her amusing memories of Jockington? What, suddenly growing a beard in second isn’t comically bizarre for her to recount?! Also, in the normal route, Jockington claimed he was on track to win both the titles of Festival King & Queen, a claim verified by Noelle checking out the ballot he showed to her. Despite this, in the Weird Route, where Jockington’s even more on track to win due to Kris & Berdly not voting and Noelle wasting one of her votes on Kris, when interacting with the ceremony’s location, Susie struggles to come up with anything relieving to say at all, as if there’s nothing memorable about a dude like Jockington being the King and Queen of Hometown! It’s not even because he’s too silly for the Weird Festival; Burger King Foot Lettuce is exclusive to it! Why would she not cite these amusing memories of Jockington unless… unless if she does not have these memories of Jockington?
Secondly, in the Normal Route there is evidence of the memory of him being greatly distorted. At the church, Catti says, “What about... me and Jockington? What about Snake Sundays?” to express her anguish at Noelle for having ditched the weekly Sunday hangout between Noelle, Jockington, and Catti to spend this Sunday’s festival with Kris and Susie instead. Despite the apparent importance of Snake Sunday to Catti, Jockington’s absent from Snake Sunday too; he’s ditching or a ditchee, and no character addresses his absence either during this entire 4-person Church Feud. It’s as if they don’t even understand that he’s supposed to be here. It’s never explained or rationalized why he’s not present, and it’s not even from a work complication because Alvin was willing to hire or let unconfident Alphys volunteer for the job, so Catti’s Precious Boy is just inexplicably gone.
Adding on, Noelle’s reaction to Catti’s simple statement is quite strange. In response to Catti’s clearly spoken criticism of Noelle for abandoning their weekly hangouts, Noelle says, “Huh? Catti, are you okay? Your hair's all on end...” Why does Noelle come off as so confused here, and why does she act like Catti’s talking crazy? There are no strange words uttered by Catti in her sentences, and it’s not that Noelle wouldn’t understand the pain of drifting apart from a friend; Noelle would be an expert in that thanks to Kris. The only reason that Noelle would have this befuddled reaction instead of apologizing for ditching Snake Sunday would be if some of the words that Catti spoke became nonsense to her, if she forgot at least one of their meanings. That reason would be fully present… if she’s forgetting Jockington, no?
Notably, the church too features a moment where a memory of Jockington may have become replaced. In CH2, Susie specifically recalls that Catti’s motive for hating Susie is that Susie “took Jockboy's hat once.” This motive is pretty valid; if you were Catti, I doubt you wouldn’t dislike a then-outwardly mean girl that picked on your limbless, intellectually challenged best friend. It is also a motive that I bet only got ingrained in Susie’s head because Catti ranted about Susie’s theft often to Susie herself and to any friend of Catti’s that has interest in discussing Susie, like Catti’s light, Noelle. However, in CH5, Noelle claims to have no idea why Catti is so weird about Susie and claims that Catti’s dislike only started when she told Catti about her feelings for Susie. Now, it is certainly probable that the factors of Catti’s dislike for Susie have always been a mix of her dislike for Susie’s meanness and her jealousy of Susie for being liked by Noelle. However, I doubt that Noelle would be able to recognize that as the inciting incident of Catti’s hatred when Catti would have masked any jealousy with as much Jockington as possible. I also doubt that if Noelle had always been able to pinpoint that her feelings for Susie triggered Catti’s disdain for Susie, Noelle would be so slow as to not have already put two and two together and would not have already confronted Catti about her jealousy to turn it into a non-issue by letting Catti down gently or hooking up with Catti. The unnatural lack of Jockington masking, the unnatural recollection of Noelle, and the unnatural slowness of Noelle make me think that Noelle’s possession of this hatred-inciting memory is artificial and that she only recently obtained it to avoid a lack of Jockington in the universe preventing Noelle from comprehending anything about Catti’s hatred for Susie.
Additionally, his behavior in the normal route aligns with his fellow potential Goners. You can find Jockington in the festival… not because he’s nowhere to be found until you vote and then leave and return to the room of the ballot, like how the Forgotten Man is always nowhere to be found until you complete a task like leaving and returning to the Starwalker room over and over. Jockington’s speech is a lot healthier by the ballot in CH5 than it was when he was at the church in CH4, like how the Forgotten Man can speak just fine in Mancountry but cannot speak anywhere else. Noticeably, all 3 Potential Goners arguably do their most prominent actions in CH5, with the Forgotten Man gifting his 5th and final egg and giving a heartfelt farewell, Normal_NPC earning his title as the Hometown Butcher, and Jockington growing the prophesied beard. Interestingly, both Normal_NPC and Jockington appear to be quite a bit fearful when they possess their prominence, with Normal_NPC going back over his words about pricing and begging you to keep interacting with him, trying to make you think that you did want to octopus with him, and Jockington exclaiming, “Oh no!” as soon as he senses the arrival of the beard and immediately expressing a desperate need to shave it off. Unlike Normal_NPC, who is a cowardly binch that is going straight to Goner Hell, Jockington accepts that his purpose has been fulfilled by claiming that “it cannot be Undone.” Jockington and the Forgotten Man are both very brave for accepting the endings of their existences, unlike that LOSER!!!
Most notably, this is the one chapter where Jockington doesn’t mention Catti. In every single previous chapter, Jockington gets a line explaining either what he’s doing with Catti or what he’s doing for Catti when apart from her. Why, in this chapter, on a Snake Sunday, the first chapter where Catti can really break down and need support from a friend like him, does he forgo being a relayer of Catti’s tale? It’s as if his very role is breaking just to make Catti feel more alone.
Although there is one mention of him accessible after the Evening time, that Susie would have fully forgotten him by, according to my theory. In the Netskie battle, Kris can do something that the game calls “Your Jockington Impression.” I have several counterarguments against this disproving my theory. Jockington’s a religious name from the prophecy, a work with famous adaptations like The Lord of the Hammer by Gerson Boom and Dragon Blazers. Kris may be doing an impression of anyone human or monster donning that religious name or just the Jockington characters from the adaptations themselves. The loss of memories about Jockington is asynchronous, as shown by Catti recalling his name and that he’s a friend of hers in the same scene that Noelle fails to recognize his name, so Kris in CH5 may just be the last person around with memories of Jockington, who will also forget him come the ending of CH5. The word “Your” is used, meaning the impression may come from your memories and not those of Kris, a memory which the game is incapable of altering. Gaster Blasters retain their name despite them being named after W. D. Gaster, so maybe Jockington Impressions work just like Gaster Blasters. Toby may have not thought too much about the Netskie fight since the Jockington Impression reuses the CH2 Kris Wiggle from the Werewire battle, and Kris can do a Berdly impression in the Aborted Weird Route, where their memories of Berdly are quite traumatic.
Finally, if this is a Jockington Impression from a Kris with a completely healthy memory of Jockington, then KRIS’ JOCKINGTON IMPRESSION IS SO ASS! The real Jockington moves his body BACK AND FORTH, while Kris here moves their body SIDE TO SIDE. If Kris’ memory of Jockington wasn’t hella distorted, they’d be doing sit-up-like movements, not whatever the hell this is! The memory of Jockington is broken.
WHY:
Anyways, my final congratulations to the Forgotten Man, Normal_NPC, and Jockington for ceasing to exist by the end of CH5. Why I think Toby is including these completions of Gonerization of CH5 is for 3 reasons. One, all 3 of these mysterious, generally irrelevant characters all appear to have finally fulfilled a purpose in CH5, in ways that, as Jockington has put it, “cannot be Undone,” so why not end their stories on high notes where they can be like eggs, not too important but not too unimportant. Two, CH5 directly precedes the Chapter numbered with Gaster’s Number, so that number’s importance may be being foreshadowed through all these closely related Goners to him no longer existing by the very start of the chapter. Finally, there are the consequences of what is lost by these 3 failing to continue existing by the start of CH6, consequences with the potential to drastically drive the plot forward.
LOST GIRL: When it comes to Forgotten Man’s end of existence, there are almost no consequences. He was barely existing when Deltarune began, and long forgotten by any friends of his. He does have us to miss him, though, as a silver lining.
Most of the same can be said about Normal_NPC, for the only living character to ever be required to address him is his Takoyaki customer, who would rather be stuck in traffic with Snailguy than ever think of the striped bird again. Hometown will be a better place without him. Good riddance. R.I.P. Onionsan.
In contrast, while not having a single family member to his name, Jockington is the best friend to Catti. It may be rather hard for her life to adjust to a world where the Precious Boy, who declared, “Whatever shape, the world takes, I'll be there” for her, has found a shape where he can no longer be there for her. But things could be okay for her, as long as her existing friends can be there for her. Like there’s Kris, who they’ve practiced occult with in the past… who has become distant to them and has become the best friend to somebody who Catti hates… oh. Well, there’s her family that loves her… that Catti pushes away and doesn’t connect with well… oh. At least, she has Noelle… who just hurt her by ditching their weekly hangout and broke her heart by going on a date with Susie… oh. There’s Jo… joc… ju… just nobody, nobody there for her, nobody there, there to comfort her broken heart.
What could a poor, feline character, trapped in Hometown, with black, pink, and yellow heavily involved in her design, and with experience in the occult, need for healing her shattered heart with a Snake-shaped hole? Oh. Oooh, I know, what she NEEDS. IS. A. FRIEND!
FELINE FRIEND FOR THE OCCULT: IMAGE_FRIEND
And hey, this guy’s already advertising himself with that exact title of FRIEND right on the cryptic other side, with so much in common visually with her too. She may even have experience summoning this exact demon, as implied by her having left Kris to work on a ritual like what would be needed to summon FRIEND alone some time ago and Kris being stalked by FRIEND, so the full ritual is definitely something she’s capable of with her skillset. There’s even evidence that she’s already making progress on summoning FRIEND in CH5, as it is the first chapter where FRIEND becomes tangible, causing real damage to the Fun Gang, and can no longer be seen as just a mere auditory or visual hallucination but a being with an existence like the one that the Forgotten Man just lost when he gave away his final egg.
FRIEND also has some things in common with Jockington that would make them a suitable successor to him for Catti. Both characters are known for laughter to be prominent in their dialogue, with Jockington often stating “Haha!” and FRIEND having their iconic laugh. Jockington is known for not having much he can do independently with his body, like how Friend is known for having spent 5 chapters not being able to really do anything in-game. A stably existing Jockington will always be there for Catti and will support his friends, no matter how usual it is that he can offer little to no physical support, no matter what shape the world takes. FRIEND, since CH2, has always been there for Kris in the background, even helping at some points by giving Kris the only way to heal during the Eram battle, no matter what shape the dark world takes. FRIEND has sorta been in a fucked up way to Kris what Jockington has been to Catti, so FRIEND may make a worthy Jockington II.
I predict that Catti will have summoned FRIEND by the start of CH6, and that we may even see them take a seat in the Classroom to be a good friend for Catti, where there is nobody else left for her, and she and her FRIEND will enter the next dark world so that she may get resolutions to her relationships with all 3 members of the Main Lightner Trio, and so that FRIEND will get the prominence that the people have been wanting for them.