u/rendumguy

Kris is somebody who misses their childhood and is obsessed with righting a wrong that they did, to the point that they neglect their present health. The fact that they now have taken poisonous seeds means that they don't think they have much of a future as well. Chapter 3 even has a theme of Kris "Going Nowhere", as if they have no prospects for the future.

Susie is completely obsessed with the present happy life she has with Ralsei, Kris, Noelle, and the other Darkners. She despises her life and is so obsessed with keeping things the way they are that she never wants her friendships to end. Susie also has no past worth caring about.

Ralsei is obsessed with protecting the future and preventing the final tragedy of the prophecy, Ralsei doesn't really have a "past" and neglects his present life. He doesn't decorate his room, he doesn't consider his own likes...

All of these seem like they're gonna be character flaws that are challenged later, though Kris to the greatest extent. Susie and Ralsei's mindsets are significantly less destructive than Kris' obsession with the past.

https://preview.redd.it/zrtqppogtbkh1.png?width=779&format=png&auto=webp&s=44dfd806309de28d295cda16bd9af2aa6411a149

It's kinda like Sonic 06, Shadow has come to terms with his past, Sonic lives in the moment, and Silver exists to protect the future. Past, present, future.

All of the Papyrus dialogue might hinting at the current location of Papyrus in each Chapter.

**"No response... but the distant trousle of Bones".**

https://preview.redd.it/yax5gs70c9jh1.jpg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b8fb729a94eaf9f3881b53caf3978b3fbc8e8328

This implies that Papyrus hasn't heard the knocking, as if his personality is still extroverted, he would answer the door, and if his personality is that he's shy, it would make sense for the dialogue to imply some sort of avoidance, like him walking away as soon as he hears the knocking.

It's likely he's *not* in the living room or kitchen, otherwise he would have responded to the knocking. Either by answering the door or by walking away or going silent, which would be described as the trousle growing quiter.

So he's probably in his room or Sans' room, While this doesn't tell us exactly where he is it helps us figure out that his location is farther in the next dialogue.

Note that I didn't bring up the lab yet, because I think the second dialogue implies he isn't there yet.

**In Chapter 1, Papyrus is in either his or Sans' room**

**"Faintly... faintly, a trousle... growing further away...."**

https://preview.redd.it/xxy51s7ai9jh1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f6d93641bf37f6dc228fc13367d5d695af860c3f

It's using faintly rather than distantly, implying it's farther, it's also "growing farther away" so I guess the dude's moving.

So Papyrus has to be somewhere further than his original location, somewhere far away, but also somewhere within the house. While technically Sans' room is closer to the door, both are relatively at a similar distance, so I think in this case this has to be either Sans' laboratory or the weird Shrine area. The Shrine area seems to have very little plot relevance and isn't even in the original version of the game, so I think that'

**In Chapter 2, Papyrus is in Sans' lab**.

**"You hear nary a bone... No rattle, nor trousle, noe xylophone tickle."**

https://preview.redd.it/oayfyvnbi9jh1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8390c2d19f3ab2a6dbf8619856452678e6d101ec

Either Papyrus is sleeping or he's not at home, there'd probably be flavor text implying snoring or sleeping if he was at home, anything other than implying complete dead silence. Considering how "busy" he's been the past few days it seems he's probably not wasting the day away.

**"Too bad he couldn't make it this year..."**

https://preview.redd.it/ppge2pndi9jh1.jpg?width=538&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8cd3e96838798b26f2791c4a92c81149e82a47ce

Very vague but Papyrus probably isn't at home, like why else block the door? This also implies that even in the evening Papyrus won't be able to attend the festival, so he's probably doing something very important.

This reminds me of the fact that Carol and to an extent Snowy and Monster Kid are conspicuously absent from most of the festival as well, when all three have ample reason to be there, with MK and Snowy showing curiosity towards it in Chapter 2. I personally think Carol caught the two sneaking off to the shelter and is interrogating them which is why she's suddenly and inconveniently absent from her own organized but my point is that I think there's stuff going on at the shelter in order for Carol to start investigating it at such a bad time. Maybe... Papyrus was also there? Maybe someone unaccounted for entered the shelter and Carol is super confused and is interrogating Snowy and MK. (Snowy and MK don't have to be here for the Papyrus thing to work but I kinda just like the idea she's interrogating them and think it works will with the story).

There's a heavy implication that the residents of Hometown can't leave so there aren't really many options for where Papyrus can go to. He has no friends, no connections, and none of the dozens of festival goers imply some suspicious mysterious stranger has been walking around the town. The one implication of suspicious activity (disregarding the Normal_NPC freakshow) is the fact that Carol, who basically is the police force, is suddenly investigating the shelter.

**Conclusion**

So I think Papyrus probably IS busy doing something, as Sans claims, he tends to bend the truth rather than lying.

Sans has been doing a lot of shady shit, from the punch card to the bread crumbs to the weird Papyrus teasing to taking over Grillby's shop... There's borderline confirmation that Deltarune was his old home...

The fact that the freakshow Normal NPC mostly Gaster follower takoyaki pals are out there directly referencing Undertale like it's no tomorrow makes it seem like people like this likely have higher knowledge over the world.

If such minor characters can have such important knowledge, why not Papyrus? I wouldn't be surprised if he's at the shelter doing... something. No idea what the plan is but most of the "Undertale reference buddies" already connect to Gaster. So maybe Sans ans Papyrus are working together to do... something in the shelter, and we'll only see him in Chapter 7.

There seems to be a trend of characters not having "names" or not usually being referred to by their "name".

The Pink dialogue here is what made me realize this, but yeah there are a lot of characters who are ""unnamed"", or their normal name is rarely used.

The "Irritable Ghost", AKA Pink, Mad Mew Mew, and Mad Dummy, is the most obvious example and sort of points this pattern out by mentioning how she doesn't care about names.

The "nobody", AKA Mettaton, seems to think they aren't deserving of a name.

ERAM obviously doesn't have a name yet.

The Knight, unless their name is "Knight", is unnamed so far.

King is generically named "King" despite him co-existing with four other kings.

Queen technically has a name, Serial Number Q5U4EX7YY2E9N, but it's practically unusable in normal conversation and nobody in or out of universe refers to her with it.

The character implied to be Gaster who speaks to us at the start of the game doesn't have a name and typing in his most likely name crashes the game. Gaster and "names" is its own can of worms.

Gerson obviously has a name, but is rarely, if ever, referred to by it when he's on screen he's almost always referred to as the Hammer of Justice or "Old Man".

Monster Kid also doesn't have a name but they didn't in UT either so meh

Ironically enough, the vessel and the SOUL DO have names since they're named at the start of the game.

There's also the Flowers which are named after their color aside from Seth, Aqua, and Flowery, who choose to be a little different, Aqua is also fitting of her color, which is probably Cyan. No idea how that factors into this 8f ar all.

EDIT: Fittingly I forgot the Forgotten Man.

This is a pretty unpopular take because of the fact that it heavily implies the Knight ISN'T one of the more accepted candidates such as Dess or a "Dess searcher" like her loved ones, it would probably have to be someone completely under the radar, but I do think it's worth considering that the Knight's current day actions give some very heavy parallels to what happened to Dess.

In the present day: Somebody opens a Dark Fountain, the Knight arrives, the Knight kidnaps a Lightner, the Knight takes that Lightner to the shelter where nobody can find them. The Knight does "something" to the people in the shelter, which seems to be a sort of sacrifice.

In the past: We now know that Dess disappeared because a fountain was opened. Dess disappeared, and Dess is in a place nobody can find her. This sequence of events fits very well with:

"Somebody opens a Dark Fountain, the Knight arrives, the Knight kidnaps a Lightner, the Knight takes that Lightner to the shelter where nobody can find them. The Knight does "something" to the people in the shelter, which seems to be a sort of sacrifice".

And people generally believe Dess was kidnapped and "something" extremely bad happened to her.

I personally don't really like the idea that the Black Shard is a red herring given that it's like... the ONLY completely new information we get about the incident, and the Knight is the ONLY character with connections to a Black Shard (excluding Asgore for obvious reasons).

Like this is already sparse info, I don't see any benefit to mentioning this unless it's super important information, and I cannot think of anything as sensible and compelling as it being the Knight.

I also just think it being the Knight is a very fun and logical direction for the story to go in and expands the mystery in a meaningful way, rather than it being some completely unrelated creature with little foreshadowing.

If it ISN'T the Knight I feel like this Black Shard reveal is pretty useless because you can't connect it to any other character at this point.

A side note is that the Black Shard has only been obtained in duels with the Knight, which may imply somebody fought it.

By the way, even if I think the Knight existed back then, I don't think this HAS to be the truth that they existed BEFORE the disappearance, and it's possible that the Knight was created immediately AFTER Dess disappeared. I just think it's something that more people should talk about.

Despite the critical acclaim of Mario Odyssey, almost everytime the Broodals are brought up I notice that people dismiss them as being lame, boring characters.

It's a shame, they tie into the game's wedding and moon themes in a really creative way and all of their boss fights have a fun shortcut you can use to skip the waiting segment.

The Robo-Brood boss fight is also one of the best fights in the series.

The only thing I don't really like is how they handle Madame Broode. I don't really think her boss fights are that interesting or fun, which as the only Broodal who isn't a mini-boss, is pretty bad.

She also never interacts with the Broodals and the fact that she's their leader is kinda just an offhand remark rather than something that matters. She honestly feels more like a random monster you fight than the leader of the game's main villain squad. I don't even think she's really "working" for Bowser outside of being the Broodals' manager she just kinda exists in the world.

So there's a theory that Deltarune's Chapters will be themed around the "reverse order" of the areas travelled in Undertale, and Chapter 5 will be themed around Snowdin. And while we've only seen a little bit of the Chapter, that seems really unlikely with how its been presented as this very plant-rich location, and the presence of a giant Sun.

I always kinda had an issue with this as Undertale doesn't really have seven segmented super defined "equal" areas, and the theory connects New Home, which is an extremely tiny area, to Chapter 1, but ignores the True Lab, which while small, is significantly bigger than New Home.

I also don't think Chapter 1 has much to do with New Home outside of King being a parallel to Asgore, but Chapter 5 is the Asgore Chapter anyway. Where's the parallel? New Home is grey and dull, Chapter 1 is colorful. There's not even a red tree (or any tree) in New Home, unlike its parallel location in The Ruins. There's not even much of anything in New Home to really inspire Chapter 1 as its not really meant to be a full area- And where's the judgment hall? The most memorable part of the area?

I don't think that Shadowguys are Titans and I don't think that Titans are Shadowguys, I think it's kinda like dinosaurs. Chickens are dinosaurs, and so are T-Rexes. Very different in terms of power but they do have an underlying close relationship.

I think that Shadowguys look like Titans (the pure black design with a black outline) simply because they're both associated with heavier darkness than the other Darkners.

Them being the shadows of action figures makes a lot more sense then them being action figures, as the Action Figures are probably not completely black, but it also explains them having Action Figure like-traits like guns and the ability to turn into a cat and rabbit.

Speaking of turning into animals, Shadowguys seem like they sort of have an ability to shapeshift, which is similar to the Knight. It's common knowledge that the Knight resembles two of the Titans shown at the Roaring explanation at the end of Chapter 2, and I think the Knight's powers likely do gave something to do with the similar power Titans and their spawn have.

Obviously the Knight is not a Darkner, but despite that it seems like it somehow is heavily tied to these weird amorphous shadow creatures.

I feel like the Shadowguys looking like this is not a coincidence, especially 2hen there are so few Chapter 3 enemies, they're so common, and they have the same weird outline as the Knight who's arrival is the shocking climax of the Chapter. But I also don't think Shadowguys are somehow secretly important super powerful beings. So I think a happy medium is that there is some sort of "extra darkness" that are shared by the Knight, Titans, and Shadowguys. So Shadowguys are related to these super powerful beings, but simply incidentally, I think that's a cool way of connecting them without making Shadowguys like overly important or something.

EDIT: Forgot to point out- All four of these characters seemingly never speak, seemingly connecting them even further.

At first glance the Knight "being" late may seem like a throwaway detail, not something tyat can make or break a Knight candidate. But the first impression we see of the Knight is them being so late to the Dark World that they miss the entire events of Chapter 3, to the point that Tenna's entire goal is to stall for time.

Carol is someone who is so caught up in her responsibilities that she's never seen until Chapter 4(and wouldn't have been seen unless Kris called her), to the point where her own daughter doesn't feel comfortable interrupting her to ask her for the key home.

Not only does she not seem like the kind of person who would be irresponsible enough to be late for anything, this is most likely the plan to save her years long missing daughter, making this even weirder.

If we assume that Carol is the caller, this actually heavily contradicts *Carol's* first scene. Why? Because Carol drops everything and *immediately* comes to Kris on behalf of keeping the plan on track.

The Knight's first impression is them being horribly late, Carol's first impression is her being incredibly punctual, arriving early even when it was inconvenient and unexpected. They don't match.

This isn't like a deconfirmation or anything, but it is a contrast worth mentioning that their first scenes of these characters with so little known about them show an opposite attitude to how responsible they are.