u/nootnoot12

Hi all, I’ve searched through after coming up with this about a week ago but haven’t been able to find anything expressing this idea so I’ve written up something myself. Genuinely very sorry if it has already been posted! (It’s also super LONG).

This whole thing was inspired by my husband and I debating how Kris knew that Seth would want Berdly’s feather. While it seems like the common consensus is that Seth had prior knowledge of Berdly due to him interacting with the flowers in some way or Asgore telling Seth about Berdly, I don’t think this addresses how Kris would know that offering one of Berdly’s feathers (or more generally “the feather of a true genius”) would be a good bargaining chip for Seth? There’s also some debate about when this deal takes place and the game does explicitly state in the cutscene that it was a deal that Seth and Kris made before the dark fountain was created (so I suspect, as many others do, that this must have been the night before the festival in the light world).

This implies that Kris must have knowledge of Seth’s personality before the dark fountain was created. It is pretty clear that this is the one and only time that these flowers have been present in a dark world based on the last scene we have with the flowers. So, most people seem to agree that their personalities are based on Asgore’s interactions with the flowers and personification of them. We do know that he talks to his flowers based on his interaction with Sans in Chapter 2 (“They’re the first ones I asked! They’re such good listeners, you know. Flowers.”). Some have even speculated that the seven flowers represent different important people in Asgore’s life (Toriel, Asriel, Kris, Rudy, Carol, Dess, and Noelle). However, other than the Aqua/Kris parallels and some of the Rudy/Flowery parallels, I haven’t found that these comparisons quite hold up. That’s not to say that there aren’t some connections (which I’ll go into later), but the analysis that has always made more sense to me is the comparison between the flowers and what they represent about Kris (some examples of analysis here and here).

So my proposition is that the flowers are all childhood imaginary friends of Kris (with one exception) and that this is how Kris knows Seth’s preferences and what will be an effective bargaining chip. The flowers’ personalities are all reflective of the sort of characters that kids make up when they play. We know that Kris has a history of playing with inanimate objects and perhaps even shaping their personalities through the way they play with them (see Ramb’s dialogue about Kris playing with him alongside King, Queen, and Tenna). I think that the flowers personalities do all reflect different things about Kris and their interests as a child. I think they also explore elements of Lightners in Kris’s life.

This would explain a few things:

• The Flowers presenting as humans: I’ve seen a few explanations of this as being a reflection of Asgore’s love for Kris, an easter egg based on the human souls in Undertale, or a reflection of humans being particularly powerful in this universe. None of these explanations have really worked for me but if these flowers are Kris’s imaginary friends, it would make some sense of it. We know Kris struggles to some degree being the only human in a town of monsters. Creating these imaginary friends who are also humans and playing with them would help Kris feel less alone in this sense.
• Connection with Kris: If they created these imaginary friends, Kris would understand their personalities and would have a pre-established relationship with them from their interactions in the Light World, as expressed by the aforementioned scene with Seth and Flowery’s dialogue about knowing how he feels about Kris.
• Ages: The range of ages of the Flowers is based on how Kris envisioned them. It isn’t uncommon for kids to come up with a range of ages for their imaginary friends and characters invented through play. It also reflects some of the ways I believe Kris is using this play to explore their own identity which I’ll go into more below
• Connection with Asgore: I think a natural question that comes up is Asgore’s connection with the Flowers. If he’s the one they are trying to keep happy and impress, how does this work if they are creations of Kris? Well, I think that Asgore began joining Kris in these games with his flowers. I can picture a young Kris telling their dad proudly about the names and personalities of these flowers, and Asgore enthusiastically playing along with his child. As time went on, something awful happened to Dess, and the game with the flowers stopped. Yet Asgore’s fatal flaw is his nostalgia, how desperately he’ll cling to the past. He’s the one who keeps caring for the flowers, who takes them with him when moving from the family home, and who we know talks to them. It would make sense for him to continue treating them as the small humans designed by his child, whose relationship with him is now strained and tense. And so these flowers over the years have grown a stronger attachment to Asgore.

How the Flowers reflect Kris and their friends/family:

1. Aqua

This is the first character I want to talk about who shows characteristics we associate a younger Kris with. Aqua is playful, cheeky, and has a fondness for knives. She is chaotic and enjoys messing with Seth in a way that seems to hint at Kris’s fondness for pranks. They share a strong resemblance in their colour schemes that Aqua herself draws attention to. This is something I’ve noticed with children, that they will create characters that are quite similar to themselves when playing with a collection of toys. It would make some sense for Kris to choose a flower in their favourite colour (or perhaps in the colour of their original soul, as some have speculated) to create as a stand in for themselves. It is interesting that Aqua is explicitly female unlike Kris who is non-binary. This could (as some have suggested) imply that Kris is AFAB.

2. Seth

Seth is a character who represents some sort of gender fluidity or non-binary exploration. I suspect this is a reflection of Kris’s own gender identity journey. Notably, Seth has chosen their own name rather than being called ‘Purple’, breaking the naming conventions of flowers to become more human-like, referring to Seth as a human name. I suspect this reflects Kris’s desire to choose their own name. I believe that they weren’t always called Kris, but wanted to choose a more human like name. (This might be a bit of a tangent, but there’s only a few names used by monsters in Hometown that I would consider ‘human names’. These are the Christmas-themed Holiday family and Susie. I think if we consider the Christmas themed names outliers this actually kinda contributes to the theory of Susie being part-human or being raised by humans. That being said, we don’t have much evidence of what conventional human names look like in the world of Deltarune beyond the choice of ‘Seth’). This does also lend itself to the idea that Kris’s original name was the monster-style name Togore, which I just think is funny.

Beyond this, Seth also shows parallels to other characters in Kris’s life. Seth is sensible and studious, something many people presume Asriel to be based on the awards in their shared room and how others in Hometown talk about him. They are also perhaps a reflection of Noelle in this sense. Creating this imaginary friend as a basis for some sort of game may reflect who Kris wants to be in the future rather than who Kris is right now. Kris clearly looks up to their older brother and at the time of creating these characters may have wanted to be like him. They are also likely already questioning their gender identity but not necessarily settled on it (which is why Seth refers to themselves as a ‘King or a Queen’ as a reflection of this.) Based on this, I think the following two characters are explorations of alternate gender identities for Kris.

3. Blue

I think Blue is an exploration of a child Kris’s potential gender identity as a man. Blue, while being male, does not conform to traditional gender stereotypes and is associated with imagery that is traditionally feminine (such as butterflies and wearing a tutu). Kids tend to explore personality traits they see from real life but also use play to experiment with how these traits may look for themselves. Imaginary play helps them to explore their own identity, giving kids a safe space to explore these elements. So Blue being male and happily using male pronouns while embracing more feminine things could represent Kris’s own potential concept of themselves as male while exploring their gender as a child. Blue is also notably quite distinct from Aqua, being much more gentle and sensible compared to her. This could represent some hidden desires of Kris to be more gentle with their loved ones and to be more able to follow the rules.

There are a couple of other similarities between Kris and Blue. Blue is an artist in a different form to Kris’s chosen art form of music (specifically the piano). However, Kris is shown to dance and pirouette during certain Act sections of battle fairly competently (I love their pirouette jump in the Tenna cooking segment so much). Blue is also quite emotionally intelligent, which I believe Kris also demonstrates based on their reactions to some of the dialogue insensitive choices players can make.

Of the colours, Blue and Green are closest to Aqua/Cyan on the colour wheel as well, which I think reflects these two as explorations of Kris’s own identity as a child.

4. Green

I think Green is another exploration of Kris’s potential gender identity as non-binary, and I would argue, the character who is closest to modern-day Kris.

Green is presented as kind and generous, choosing to help us out in battle rather than attack. This in and of itself reflects Kris’s own ability to Act in battle, usually providing some sort of helpfulness or kindness to the characters we interact with. Kris is also a genuinely kind character, which we may not always see due to them hiding information from us and just generally disliking this entity that is possessing them. While Kris is complex and makes choices we may not agree with, Kris clearly is conflicted by this and is likely being coerced in some way based on the final Chapter 4 phone call. When Kris acts on their own, while it often to act like a gremlin in some way or to hide information from the player. However, there are some other key moments where Kris acts in kindness without our input. This includes defending Susie from King in Chapter One and the Sound of Justice in Chapter Four, and kneeling to hug Ralsei at the end of Chapter Four. Kris also will prevent the player from making unkind dialogue choices by covering their mouth, coughing, speaking too fast, or mumbling.

Green also doesn’t talk throughout the chapter and instead uses body language and written signs to communicate. Much of Kris’s communication does seem to take place through body language, which Susie is seen to be able to interpret. Kris, too, is presented as a character who is usually quiet and has a ‘mumbly’ voice that they use to communicate. This quiet and mumbly voice is something Kris has always had based on Noelle’s memory, which is worth acknowledging as it seems to contradict the idea that Aqua is based on a child version of Kris. However, Aqua could be based more on Kris’s self-perception and sense of who they are rather than the reality. This means it makes much more sense for Aqua to be a creation of Kris as a child which takes some creative liberties, rather than being someone Asgore created meant to sentimentally reflect his child as they were.

5. Yellow

Yellow is a cowboy, which is another classic children’s character archetype. Kris is also revealed to have enjoyed watching cowboy shows with Asgore when they were younger, meaning a cowboy imaginary friend they created as a child would make sense. Yellow’s sense of right and wrong is also very skewed and childlike, representing some very black and white thinking about justice which is quite common in children.

On a darker note, a lot of Yellow’s comedic sections stem from a strong sense of guilt when he perceives himself as being responsible for hurting someone he loves. This results in self-harming behaviour in an attempt to punish himself. This is a reflection of both Asgore and Kris. Kris harms themselves by removing the Soul to try and achieve their own ends. Kris seems to coerced into this type of behaviour and it is likely related to their working with the Knight/Carol/whoever else. Many see this as a reflection of Kris being responsible to some degree (whether this is just their own perception of the situation or true responsibility is unclear). Asgore harms himself by distancing himself from his friends and family in the pursuit of justice against the Knight (or whoever caused Dess’s disappearance). This is like how Yellow imprisons himself after his attempts at physically harming himself are foiled, distancing himself from those he loves like Blue. I think this character may have been created by both Asgore and Kris as they played together when Kris was a child.

6. Orange

Orange is an interesting character as she seems to represent some of Kris’s discomfort at being a human rather than a monster, while still insisting that she is a human. From this, I conclude that while Kris felt isolated as the only human in Hometown, they don’t necessarily reject their own humanity but struggle more with being physically distinct from the monsters in Hometown. Our evidence of their distaste for their own humanity seems to mostly be rooted in the physical (questioning when their horns will grow in and wearing the fake horns around). The only other evidence we have of Kris disliking being human comes from closing the book showing unfamiliar humans in Chapter 2, which could again be due to disliking human appearance rather than their identity as a human.

There is other evidence of Kris wanting to represent themselves differently, but not necessarily as a monster, but as a dog. (I do know that dog monsters exist in this world but most people see this as Kris being a furry rather than wanting to be a monster. There’s also evidence that pets/animals exist in this universe through games like Cat-Petterz, Noelle’s hamster cage, and Susie’s remark about Kris’s cage being for a bird or something.) I think that Orange represents Kris’s desire to remain human but to physically represent themselves differently, perhaps as a dog. Orange resembles a mouse rather than a dog, which I think is meant to be due to Noelle’s fear of mice. I could picture the two of them playing a game together and Kris using this mouse-like human in the game to prank Noelle.

Speaking of Noelle, I think Orange’s desire to become more brave over time is a reflection of Noelle’s personality. Noelle is presented as being fearful (particularly when she was younger) and easily scared by Kris. However, she is also shown to enjoy being scared and the feeling of being comforted. She became more brave throughout the Chapter 2 Dark World, being able to stand up to Queen by the end. Similarly, she becomes more brave and is able to stand up to Carol in Chapter 5. Orange also runs to her ‘big sister’ when she is frustrated at Ralsei’s treatment of her, which is something we know Noelle did with her own big sister when tormented by Kris. So, I think Orange reflects both Kris’s desire to appear different and less human, and Noelle’s desire to be braver. I think this imaginary friend was created by both Noelle and Kris as they played together as children.

7. Flowery

I also believe as part of the game, Asgore created one of the flower characters himself. This is Flowery, who reflects Asgore’s nostalgia again, being a human version of Rudy and who constantly plays to Asgore’s nostalgia throughout the chapter to try and keep him happy. This is in contrast to the way the other flowers try to please him, who use more child-like methods of showing him what they’ve been working on or trying to get him to play with him. That’s because the other six flowers reflect the childhood need for parents to notice their children and validate that they have done a good job. Therefore, I think the other six flowers reflect Kris’s method of trying to please their dad, whereas Flowery more directly reflects Asgore’s own desire to live in a nostalgic fantasy rather than appreciating the here and now. This is what leads Asgore to not really notice that something is very wrong with Kris (especially in the weird route).

I also think this explains why Flowery’s design is a lot more human-like. I get the impression that Kris as a child actually had very little exposure to what other humans look like, with little awareness that they are not a monster and won’t have horns grow in. However, Asgore could have much more easily encountered other humans at college, or during Kris’s adoption process, or at least seen them in the How to Care for Humans book. Flowery’s design is just generally quite different to the other flowers, which to me indicates that his character was created by someone other than the other flowers.

Anyway, that’s my theory about the flowers! Let me know what you think, sorry it’s so long!