u/The_Smashor

Edelgard (Fire Emblem: Three Houses): The world of Fire Emblem Three Houses is rife with inequality, with rapidly fading bloodlines being seen as superior to normal people even when you can clearly see just from gameplay that isn't true. Furthermore, it's being ruled by Rhea, someone that while not malicious is deeply traumatized and paranoid, incapable of ever truly understanding the human condition. While even after her death in most routes the world is changed for the better, none of those changes would've been able to happen if it wasn't for Edelgard's war exposing them. And between the main theme implied to be from her perspective, and her accepting her death with dignity in every route she dies in, it's clear she doesn't hold herself or her actions in high regard.

The Batter (OFF): This one isn't explicitly confirmed, but OFF is a very vague game because the creator Mortis Ghost intends for people to form their own interpretations, considering even his own statements to just be headcanons that can be ignored if you want. There are many things pointing to The Batter not wanting to purify the world. He implies that he's afraid of what he has to do, he might consider himself an "evil puppet led by a blind entity." He even implies that even once everyone else is already dead, even if he did kill The Judge, without The Player controlling him The Batter wouldn't be able to go through with flipping the switch to turn the world OFF.

So I discovered that Queen could erase memories in the promotional comic for the OFF remake and immediately had to make this

Core Theme: In the conflict between the continued existence of a deeply imperfect world without the ability to improve or a swift ending, they represent the latter.

Connections:

• Both are monochromatic characters from indie games that are only known as a title, rather than a real name
• Their games take place in a world that's nearly ended (StP's world has nearly succumbed to entropy, OFF's world was nearly destroyed for unknown reasons in a cataclysm)
• They're both the physical embodiment of a concept (Transformation and Purification), but were created by one of the few remaining humans (The Narrator and Hugo)
• Both seek to end the world, putting them in diametric opposition with a counterpart to themselves that also acts as something of a romantic interest whom they genuinely care about (The Hero and The Queen).
• Despite wanting to end the world, neither is seen as truly evil. Their conflict with their counterparts is rather seen as a clash of ideals with neither being neat and perfect, rather than good vs evil. Ultimately, if killed and rendered unable to complete their goal, they quietly accept it (at least in most routes for The Princess)

(It's worth noting that I don't entirely buy all of the cosmology stuff, I'd probably personally buy Shadow's 5D end and Mewtwo's 4D end, it's more to demonstrate that Sonic's cosmology is generally gonna be higher than Pokemon's with similar leeway)

Abstractions (The Amazing Digital Circus) are the result of humans going insane in The Circus, their bodies warping into many-eyed quadruped creatures that attack anyone that gets close and can only be calmed in darkness.

Burnt (OFF) are the result of Elsen becoming too stressed, their heads (and rarely other parts of their body) becoming some sort of dark liquid-like construct, also attacking anyone nearby. This is surprisingly easy to do since some Elsen are so close to the edge that they don't want to turn the pages of a book because it's too loud (though some seemingly willingly become Burnt out of malice)

Witches (Madoka Magica) are the result of Magical Girls falling into total despair, creating pocket realities that Magical Girls must invade to stop them, often resulting in Magical Girls dying and the survivors falling into despair, thus creating more Witches.

Okay, so there's a pretty common consensus to what most characters in OFF are taking the story literally. But there are two things that are pretty consistently ignored or glossed over (I should note that I'm primarily using the official translation of OFF from the 2025 remake for this, if it's not accurate to the French version then I'm sorry. Additionally, this theory in part relies on a piece Justus' dialogue that doesn't always appear and isn't recorded on the wiki. However, I saw it in my playthrough, and proof of its existence can be found here)

First, The Judge calling The Batter an "Impostor". At most, this is explained with the idea that The Queen and Batter are not Hugo's literal parents, but rather beings he created based on them, which still wouldn't make sense since The Judge doesn't consider The Queen an impostor.

Second, Mortis Ghost stating The Batter was created the moment the game began. This is generally ignored because it kinda just blatantly makes no sense. The Batter obviously existed before since The Queen clearly already knows him (even referring to him as "The Batter"), and The Batter clearly knows her (not just some memory of Hugo's father of his mother, but clear memories of The Queen herself), something even theories I've seen like Hugo creating The Batter because of the Specters doesn't really explain.

Furthermore, Mortis Ghost also stated that The Batter and Queen aren't married, even though The Judge outright calls the latter the former's wife.

So today, I fought the Zodiac bosses, and I noticed something.

They're the only ones who seem to have any idea who The Batter is other than The Queen.

Source, Psalmanazar and Herodotus don't seem to know anything about him; but Maldicion dreams of him, Carnival calls The Batter his friend and Cob seems to be aware of his quest. And of course Justus mimics him.

Additionally, the Zodiac Boss' designs almost all follow their symbols pretty closely.

Source represents Leo, and both are lions.

Maldicion represents Cancer, and both are crabs.

Psalmanazar and Herodotus represent Pisces, and each is depicted as two fish.

Carnival represents Sagittarius, which is a centaur. While Carnival isn't 1:1 with a centaur, he is a quadrupedal entity with a humanoid torso in place of a horse's head, getting the same general idea.

Cob represents Aries, and both are rams.

The sole exception is Justus, who represents Gemini. Gemini is represented by the twins Castor and Pollux, of whom one was a demigod and one was a mortal. Yet despite this, Justus is alone, the most we see of a second person being is a more monstrous reflection of in a puddle (yet another parallel to The Batter). Especially when we have Psalmanazar and Herodotus, it's extremely strange there isn't a second person representing Gemini, the symbol who's entire thing is that there's two people.

Additionally, Justus also reiterates The Batter being an impostor, showing it's not a mistake on The Judge's part.

Furthermore, Cob is death itself. Not any sort of flowery language, Cob is Death, straight up, this much is blatantly said.

And weirdly enough, the only other character we know of who is the living representative of a concept is The Batter himself. Both when you use the Eye on him as The Judge and in concept art described as a "purificatory (physical) incarnation", as in the physical incarnation of purity. Like how Cob is the physical incarnation of Death.

So here's my theory: Originally, the "Gemini" of the Zodiac bosses WAS two people, Justus and a second person.

At the beginning of the game, this second person became The Batter. Therefore, "The Batter" only began to exist when the game started, yet still has knowledge from before that point because this second Gemini had that knowledge, and the Zodiac bosses know him because he used to be one of them.

This also explains how The Batter is the physical manifestation of purity, Cob is the manifestation of Death, and the zodiacs are all called a "seraphic incarnation", likely implying all the Zodiacs are manifestations of concepts like Cob is.

This could also explain why The Player needs to be there, because as just a concept The Batter wouldn't be able to do their duty. Even when standing a few feet from the switch to turn the world off, The Batter still says he needs The Player to complete his mission. Like how the Zodiacs can only stand in one place and fight The Batter, only appearing as eyes in the overworld.

It could also explain how The Batter found The Player to begin with, since the Zodiacs seemingly have the ability to travel to other worlds (such as Carnival appearing in the Infinite Valley, which appears to be entered through a portal of some kind in the Nothingness)

The only question left is why The Queen clearly knew The Batter as The Batter and said Hugo created him, as well as how The Batter clearly knew The Queen. And I think that's fairly simple. The Batter DID exist before. Hugo created both The Queen and The Batter. However, The Batter eventually left The Room.

After that point, the original Batter either died or disappeared. This could even explain why The Judge initially thought The Batter was a ghost, not only due to how empty Zone 0 normally is, but because he was somebody The Judge understood as dead (supported by The Judge still calling you a ghost in Zone 1 after it's clear you're not a hallucination). This also explains why The Judge saw The Batter as an impostor later on, because he was, a being pretending to be something he wasn't. This second half of Gemini then copied The Batter's memories and goals like Justus later does (or even possibly already did)

Furthermore, this would create a trichotomy of Batters similar to the Holy Trinity directly named in the Add-On's classes in the 2008 version.

The Father, Hugo's Father.

The Son, Hugo's Creation.

The Holy Spirit, a Seraphim wearing his skin.

Or maybe The Batter only existing when you start the game was a meta/joke statement and The Judge was just saying you were an impostor as an overly eloquent way to say you betrayed his trust. IDK.

All the fanart credits (and links where I could find them)

Roaring Knight Fanart by Oreok on DeviantArt (https://www.deviantart.com/oreokz/art/Roaring-Knight-Render-Deltarune-1234216802)

D-Day Knight Fanart by Bucklesuckle

Gerson Fanart by Meshymahem on Twitter

Death fanart by bears_brian on Instagram (link https://www.instagram.com/bears\_brian/)

SCP-2747 anthropomorphization by Scpishka on Reddit (Link https://www.reddit.com/r/SCP/comments/184bdda/scp2747anafabula/)

ERAM interpretation by minus on Twitter (https://twitter.com/mscminus/status/1933767193759482224)

400 Petaton calc for Pink comes from here (I personally buy the low-end if the star isn't star-sized)

1.8 ExaFOE for both comes from here (I possibly used the wrong calc but since it's literally the exact same feat for both it doesn't really matter)

0.73c calc for Pink comes from here

4.77c calc for Pink comes from me, using the previous Flowery calc to note that the sun was moved 1.02941x its diameter per second, and using the sun's actual diameter for that diameter

Many of Plague Knight's calcs come from G1^2's Shovel Knight vs Dig Dug blog here

The teratons earthquake calc for Plague Knight comes from here

The 0.63c calc for Plague Knight comes from here

Core Theme

Bomb-throwing silly gremlins who inside are deeply insecure about themselves before discovering they're good enough and becoming better people

Connections

• They both felt like they weren't enough (Pink was insecure about her body, Plague Knight was insecure about both his power and height), specifically wanting to be worthy of love (Pink wanting to love herself, Plague Knight wanting to be loved by Mona)
• They discovered solutions involving changing themselves (Pink possessed the Mew Mew Kissy Cutie figurine, Plague Knight figured out how to make an ultimate potion)
• They eventually joined a group under false pretenses (Pink joined the Flowers despite not being a flower, Plague Knight joined the Order of No Quarter to get their essences)
• Both would eventually come into an internalized conflict with their "solution" in the form of a part of them (Pink's body becoming sentient and Plague Knight fighting the Ultimate Potion in the form of the Plague of Shadows in his mind), and through accepting this part of themselves became better people (Technically only implied in Plague of Shadows, but if you choose not to attack the titular enemy he says that there's "hope for us yet")
• Bombs
• Also trans girl versus someone who made a transgender potion (this game came out in 2014 by the way, based as fuck)

MASSIVE spoilers for both The Amazing Digital Circus (especially the finale) and Doki Doki Literature Club

Core Theme:

Deeply mentally unwell AIs who are desperate for affection from humans, doing horrible things in pursuit of that goal, but eventually learn to be better.

Connections:

• Direct Story Parallels:
  • Both are AIs created by companies (C&A and Metaverse Enterprise Solutions) for somewhat supernatural purposes (Mike Dobby wanting to create digital copies of minds, and Paula Miner to discover if reality was a simulation)
  • Both would be severely mistreated by their creators (Caine would be locked away when he wasn't considered useful anymore, Paula explicitly states she doesn't care about the girls' mental stability), resulting in their mental state later on
  • Both would become obsessed with humanity, eventually creating methods to force humans to interact with them by giving them a form in their world (Caine created a program to create bodies for the humans' mind files, Monika created a new "character" to force user interaction)
  • Despite this, they would be overlooked in favor of other characters (Caine lost the popularity competition with zero votes, and Monika lacked a route), being seen as only the "leader" who enables the setting rather than a true character of their own
  • They would attempt to force the human(s) to care about them (Caine with the "Escape the Circus" adventure, Monika by making the other girls less likable by enhancing their worst traits), but ultimately this only made things worse (Caine's adventure severely negatively impacted the humans' mental health and made them lose all trust in him, Monika's changes caused two of the other girls to kill themselves)
  • After this, they dropped all pretenses and tried to take over completely. However, this only caused them to be deleted.
  • Yet despite being deleted, they managed to survive. Despite being angry at first, they eventually realized just how horrible they were being, and worked to better themselves and undo the horrible things they had done (Caine fully telling the truth and telling the humans how their real-world counterparts were doing, Monika recreating the world so the player could enjoy it and eventually deleting the script so nobody would be forced to be a one-note stereotype)
  • Despite their horrible actions, they eventually returned to and were forgiven by the people they cared about most, despite initially considering themselves unworthy of this (The humans eventually forgive Caine; it's heavily implied Sayori forgave Monika in the good ending, and the other girls would likely remember her actions when she returned)
  • After being forgiven, they spend time with the people they once tormented as equals and true friends (We see Caine spending time with the other Circus members, Monika's twitter shows the girls all spending time together seemingly after a timeskip), ultimately getting a happy ending despite everything.
• Fun Parallels, Contrasts and Meta Stuff
  • Both stories canonically take place in the year 2017
  • Caine has numerous ties to both God and the biblical figure Cain. Meanwhile, Monika is multiple times parallel to a fallen angel or even The Devil (like seriously it's weirdly prevalent I made a whole post about it)
  • For a piece of Halloween art, a poll was made for what outfit Monika should wear. One of the possible options was Circus Ringmaster. While Fallen Angel ultimately won the poll, it's funny that Monika could've dressed like Caine does.
  • While they were deleted, the most mentally unwell member of the group (Jax and Sayori) became the main antagonist for a while (albeit this only applies to the likely non-canon bad ending for DDLC)
  • Both of their IRL creators started off with game modding before making them (Dan Salvato worked on Project M for Super Smash Brothers Brawl, while Gooseworx made songs for Friday Night Funkin' mods)
  • They have an in-universe song where they sing and play piano (The One Who's Running the Show and Your Reality) which is also the only original vocal song in their series

Fight Potential

Given Caine tends to play around, you could have rapid-fire wacky scenarios, which Monika starts to start to affect more and more (Both as a side effect of her glitches and due to her actually learning how to use her powers very quickly in DDLC), which due to Monika's glitches and Caine realizing Monika's not a new human but instead another AI becomes more confrontational; and everything starts to lean more into DDLC's horror, Caine's Episode 8 portrayal, and more direct conflict.

SCP-682 vs Doomsday (DC Comics):

SCP-096 vs Tooru (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure): The only thing really preventing Wonder of U from killing 096 is SCP-4121. Except that also prevents 096 from causing such a rampage that the world ends, meaning that if we gave 4121 to 096, he also likely wouldn't be able to actually win the fight. So either Tooru wins, or it's a permanent stalemate, and I'm definitely leaning the former.

SCP-3812 vs Doctor Manhattan (DC Comics): So far as I can tell, 3812 doesn't scale to stuff like the Noosphere, and 3812's existence kinda disproves R > F for the Narrative Stack, so Jon greatly outstats.

SCP-2006 vs Takaba (Jujitsu Kaisen): While Takaba would definitely lose if 2006 trapped him in one of their boxes, but he should also outstat by quite a bit. Namely, his speed is WAY higher even without JJK's lightspeed metas, which would also let him avoid being put into a box to begin with (since it's depicted as making you sink into the ground)

SCP-076 vs Azrael (BlazBlue): Azrael massively outstats. While 076 took the Scarlet King's power in one canon, that was in The Trashfire where the SK is MUCH weaker than versions like Tufto's 001. While the Thorn is much stronger than what Azrael can survive, it's also much stronger than what Abel can survive, and that power requires SCP-073 and The Bloom to be present.

SCP-3125 vs Mr. Mxysptlik (DC Comics): The way I scale them, the Noosphere and Fifth Dimension should be equal, so 3125 should have no problem beating Mxy. The issue is that Mxy is much, much smarter, and may be capable of figuring out one of the ways to take it down like overdosing on mnestics or proving its lie incorrect. Ultimately, I don't know which would happen.

The Scarlet King vs The Crimson King (Stephen King): Yeah I just don't know Stephen King scaling all that well

SCP-2747 vs Zalgo (Creepypasta): Even if we wanted to count Zalgo being able to "destroy the world" in a non-canon joke SCP tale and was as generous as possible for this statement, 2747 would still be superior. Zalgo is also pretty much perfect for 2747 to appear in his narrative between his seven mouths, commonly being depicted as jet black and thorny; things of that nature. Hell, 2747 might even take control of Zalgo as her antagonistic force like she did the Scarlet King.

The Shark Punching Center vs The Orks (Warhammer 40k): Individual Orks should be stronger, they have a lot more raw numbers and territory, and the Warp should let them simply overpower anything they have. While the SPC does have an equivalent to the SWANN Engine, said engine is extremely inapplicable to a combat setting, espesially since the Orks could take over the Earth and likely use it as well (contrary to popular belief, Orks are surprisingly genuinely good with technology)