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PREREQUISITE

I'm assuming that most people at this moment in time generally believe that the skeleton of the game is as such:

Chapter 1 : Unused Classroom Chapter 2: Computer Lab Chapter 3: Dreemurr Residence Chapter 4: Church Chapter 5: Flower King Chapter 6: The Shelter Chapter 7: ??? Endgame/Roaring/Etc

In general, most people I've talked to seem to believe this. It seems to be consensus that we will obtain all 3 Shelter Codes in Chapter 5. If you combine this with the idea that 6 is the "Gaster Number", and that a lot of patterns seem to end at 5 (5 crystals, seemingly 5 eggs, the original release plan being 3-5, Gerson's dialog, etc), the common belief from this is that Chapter 5 is the last ""regular"" chapter, and that Chapter 6 and 7 is where stuff gets completely wild. While I understand where this comes from, I am going to argue here that this belief, that Chapter 6 is extremely abnormal, isn't exactly accurate. I will try my hardest to justify this later, but for now, please just hear me out. HERE WE GO!

FOUNDATION 1: THE ICE PALACE

I think the entire foundation of this idea lies in the Ice Palace itself. I believe that the Ice Palace is the Holiday Manor Dark World. Whether it will literally be called the Ice Palace or whether the Ice Palace is just the name that Dragon Blazers uses for it, I'm not sure, but I think that's the connection. For the uninitiated, the Ice Palace is a location that's mentioned as part of Dragon Blazers.

In-game, Noelle talks about it. Rudy asks if she has finished Dragon Blazers III, to which Noelle says:

This is kind of subtle, but this kind of implies that the Ice Palace is an endgame location in Dragon Blazers III. Rudy is asking if she's beaten the game, but she's still at the Ice Palace. This kind of implies that Rudy thinks that Noelle could've beaten the game from when they last left off. This is furthered by the fact Noelle apparently has "99 blaze potions", suggesting surplus.

In Chapter 2, they are playing the game again, this time seemingly on the boss of the Ice Palace.

The Silver Drake. Noelle and Rudy attempt using Fireshock, but can't, because the mage isn't in the party. Noelle then uses one of her "99 Blaze Potions" to attack the boss, but it reflects fire damage.

Hmm... It reflects fire damage? If only that were maybe a relevant hint to something that might happen in-game. Oh wait.

Toby basically implied a Fire Spell is planned. He only said he decided against it for Chapter 1. Ralsei is almost certainly learning Fire Magic. Maybe even in Chapter 5. Thus explaining this potential foreshadowing if we're going to have to actually fight the Silver Drake.

This is about as much as we learn about the palace in-game. But we do learn a bit more in the Sweepstakes. In Icepalace Glaceir, Noelle talks about the Ice Area in Dragon Blazers. (Seemingly Dragon Blazers 1?)

She describes a cross-shaped maze. She describes a helpful NPC character who guides you through the maze. However, if you enter the maze without that character, you get stuck, and this is a known softlock and issue.

She says that, somehow, she managed to find a hidden door by wandering around, with the final direction being "up". This door is found nowhere else in the game, and was locked. And she's never been able to find a key that opens it. She is apparently able to consistently get this door to appear if she concentrates.

Obviously, we've seen the Ice Palace in game in Chapter 3. However, I feel like that's not the whole story. While we do explore a version of the ice palace in Mantle... none of the foreshadowing for it really applies? Sure, we see the cross maze. But the secret Noelle talks about? Straight up not real. That's not a thing we can do. You might be say, "Well, Hold on! We do find the door in the maze!" And on the surface, yeah, we do. Except when you actually think about it, literally like none of the details Noelle describes actually line up.

She gives us a few key details:

The Last Direction you go is Up (Always)

You get this by entering the maze without the guide

The door is locked (and there is no key in the game that works for it).

All 3 of these are just untrue in MANTLE.

While it's true the door we find is facing to the north, the last direction we actually go within the maze itself- which would be what Noelle is talking about- is actually always to the right. Why wouldn't Toby just make the maze directly connect to the door? Why have it go right, then up? Unless they're not meant to be the same door.

Within MANTLE, there is no way to enter the maze without a guide. You need the White Cloak to get past the bluebird, and so you can't enter the maze without it. The door we find in the maze is the one we find by following the white cloak- by listening to the NPC. It's literally even hinted at in the dungeon! What we find is clearly the intentional solution, not a weird secret easter egg.

The door we find is locked... but we always have the key for it. It requires the ICE KEY, the same ICE KEY you need to enter the dungeon. By extension, this means that there is literally no way to actually physically get to the door without already having the key. To make this clear: It is not possible to get to the door but not have the key. By nature of entering the dungeon, you already have the key.

If the red-horned door was meant to be the secret Noelle door, why not make it so that the Ice Key is needed for the door, but not the dungeon itself? That'd also explain why Noelle couldn't ever find the key, because it's in a "different game". But, no. It almost seems like every single part of this is designed to tell us that these two doors are not the same. Which means that Noelle's Secret Ice Palace Trick is still entirely unaccounted for, bizarrely enough. Why make this super secret niche thing that only Noelle can do if it doesn't ever actually come up? There's also the Silver Drake. The Silver Drake doesn't appear at all in MANTLE in any capacity. We also know the Silver Drake is the Ice Palace boss:

Why foreshadow this enemy if we're never seeing it? In general, I feel like it's extremely weird that the Ice Palace has both of these big things attached to it that kinda just... don't happen? There's also the general fact that it's part of Dragon Blazers. Dragon Blazers is of course based on Lord of the Hammer which is based on The Prophecy, meaning that everything in it, to some extent, is based on the story we're playing. It's possible that Dragon Blazers made it up, but would it truly just make up an endgame location like that? It seems strange to me, and I don't buy that the Ice Palace is based on what we see in Chapter 3. Again, the Dragon Blazers Ice Palace is an endgame location with a bossfight. This means the Ice Palace is still unaccounted for. Given this, I think it makes sense to say it's a dark world location we'll see later. And what better for an Ice Palace than the Holiday Manor, which is extremely holiday wintery themed?

FOUNDATION 2: THE PACING

What a lot of people seem to believe right now is that Chapter 5 will end with us having all 3 shelter codes and entering the Shelter. This generally makes sense on first glance- Even I believed this at one point!

But, please, hear me out here. The more I've thought about it, I feel like there's just gotta be at least one more """regular""" dark world in the mix somewhere for a lot of things to make sense. Let's consider Noelle Holiday.

Noelle's, like, 100% returning to the Dark World, right? We all agree on this, I feel. She's still getting responses to items, she even has Swatch dialog in the cafe in Castle Town! It's happening. Here's my question: When? It doesn't seem like it's happening in Chapter 5, if that's what your answer is. I present the evidence of deltarune.com/chapter5:

It is generally agreed these numbers are meant to indicate how prevalent the weird route is to the chapter. The 2 is massive because that's where everything starts. The 3 is massive (but nearly invisible) because of the Sword Route, which basically is seemingly meant to teach you how to do the Weird Route.

The 4 is small because ultimately aside from the manor sequence and ending, the vast majority of 4's actual story is relatively unchanged, and the 1 is microscopic because there's basically no weird route at all, only being visible slightly because technically Chapter 1 must happen logically for Chapter 2 to occur. What is fascinating here is that the 5 is smaller than the 2, but bigger than the 4. If the reading of size = relevance is correct, then... doesn't this kind of imply that Noelle isn't coming to the Dark World? Surely, a post-weird Chapter 4 Noelle being in the Flower King Dark World would have MASSIVE ramifications, wouldn't it? Surely there's no way Noelle being part of the Dark World storyline wouldn't have huge changes. I simply can't believe it. I think the size of the 5 is best explained by Noelle being part of, say, light-world festival scenes. However... This leaves us with a problem, doesn't it? I'm not sure about you, but I kind of don't think that we're going back to normal after the shelter. I get the impression once we go down there, stuff gets Real. I seriously doubt we're going to bring recruits back to Castle Town from the Shelter. Even if we force ourselves to assume that there is no Noelle Castle Town sequence, where does she fit into things? Does she accompany us into the Shelter? It's possible, but I kind of think it'd be weird to try and handle Noelle's DW return and whatever weird stuff is going on in the shelter at the same time. So... When is Noelle going to return to the darkness? We're kind of out of options. Unless, of course, we allow ourselves to introduce just one more Dark World into the mix. A Chapter 6 Holiday Manor Dark World would be the perfect time to truly give Noelle's return to the darkness the narrative weight it probably deserves. Further, dedicating the chapter to this also makes sense when you consider the weird route, since this gives the game plenty of time to focus on whatever's going on in that route.

Consider also that after we seal this hypothetical Manor Fountain, we would still have to return to Castle Town at least once more before visiting the Shelter- we have to drop off the Recruits. This would be a perfect time for Susie to invite Noelle to Castle Town, since we'd be going there anyway. There's also some other pacing things I think make a bit more sense if you consider there being a 6th Dark World. Consider the Ralsei Room subplot. In Chapter 4, it is revealed that Ralsei's room is Not Good, and that we must collect items from the Dark Worlds to kit it out into something awesome. Susie says:

A very good mission statement, if you ask me.

Here's the problem with that: We've barely found anything! His room is gonna suck! Right now, all we can collect for his room: - The weird Ice-E plush from Chapter 2 - The Ralsei Plush from Chapter 2 (this comes at the cost of not getting the Susie plush, for what it's worth) - A ladder - A single couch cushion And... that's it!!! That's all we've found! Four chapters in, and that's literally all we've managed to get. I highly doubt that while we're searching around the Shelter we're gonna be on the lookout for furniture. Unless Chapter 5 has a ton of stuff in it, how are we possibly going to deck it out wall to wall? To be honest, this is weird to me under any interpretation, but at least if we say that Chapter 6 is another "regular" Dark World, we get another chance to find things.

A less potent point that I don't really think is that strong but I'm still going to make anyway because it's interesting:

The fucking bird that I hate. Every "day", we get access to new books. In Chapter 2, we can read two books. In Chapter 4, we can read three. We can reasonably assume that in Chapter 5, we'll be able to read the fourth book. But what about the 5th and 6th? Honestly, I have no clue. But if we're saying that Chapter 6 starts the endgame and is weird shelter gaster nonsense, I can't exactly see ourselves going to the library to read a book. Comparatively while it still really wouldn't make sense under my current proposal for Holiday Manor, I can at least possibly see us being able to visit the library on the way back to Castle Town. Who knows, maybe by the time we seal the dark world, it's already morning? This would leave the 6th book unread, but perhaps that's the joke, that because the Bird has no more room to move to the left, we can never read the final bookshelf. I know what some of you are saying, and believe me, I'll get to the 5 Eggs and 5 Crystals stuff in a bit. Please let me cook.

FOUNDATION 3: THE SHELTER KEY

There are 3 codes we need to get into the Shelter. There is the Police Code, the Church Code, and the Guitar (Holiday) Code. I believe currently that it is most likely that the Guitar Code is the final one we obtain. The Church Code is the most mysterious one right now, but I believe it makes the most sense to say that Alvin has it and will give it to us. Perhaps Susie's letter from Gerson will be what it takes? I don't think the Church code will be that hard to get. The Police Code is almost certainly going to be given to us by Asgore. I can see the vision for this being the last code we obtain, but I don't actually think it is. The game hasn't really set up Asgore as the police chief that much. Obviously we know he is, but the game hasn't really done very much to build this specific plot point up- it's a fairly missable detail. Additionally, it seems likely to me that after the events of Chapter 5, Asgore will simply give us the code. I'm confident there will be some sort of arc/storyline to lead us to that moment, but that story would basically be contained to Chapter 5. The Guitar Code I think makes the most sense to be the final code we obtain. Not only has the game gone out of its way to build it up in advance, but it's also the one we failed to get. More importantly than that, it's also the one that's directly under Carol's protection. No matter your opinions on the Knight's identity, it's quite clear that Carol is an important part of the Knight Conspiracy. That code is under her protection. I heavily doubt it's going to be particularly easy to get it from her.

If you think we already know the code, and thusly it'd be narratively redundant for the story to act as though it's something we still need to do, I disagree- please read my thoughts on that here. Susie even emphasizes that we need to go back for the Guitar code:

And given that Carol is seemingly a significant part of the Knight conspiracy, I really can't see a scenario where her code is particularly easy to get. Here is my proposal: Chapters 4-6 is the Shelter Code fetchquest. Each Chapter ends up with us getting one code. While we did not actually get the code itself in Chapter 4, we did the legwork- our adventures with Gerson and the letter that results in will most likely be key to getting the code from Alvin in the next Chapter, so, for intents and purposes, Chapter 4 is when we "get" the Church Code. Chapter 5 will be focused around doing the legwork to get the Police Code from Asgore. And then, Chapter 6 can be us doing the legwork to get the Guitar Code from Holiday Manor, where it is actively protected and under watch of Carol. Purely from, like, a narrative perspective in my eyes, it makes the most sense for the Guitar code to be the most well protected and the final one we get. Unlike the Police and Church codes which are likely to be given from us, the Guitar code is the one that we need to actively go out of our way to take. And, of course... If we think back to MANTLE...

The SHELTER KEY is in the ICE PALACE, is it not? Obviously there are 3, but the final one is the one that truly lets us actually enter the Shelter.

And, of course, where are we told to go to get the SHELTER KEY?

And... where is the Guitar Code stored?

Oh, you know, in Dess' room. With the Northern Lights. Combine this with the implication that the Ice Palace is an endgame location in Dragon Blazers, and... honestly, I think it slots together quite nicely.

CHECKPOINT

I'm going to quickly summarize what I've gone over so far. These are my 3 foundational points. 1) The Ice Palace has been built up through Dragon Blazers, and several factors of the Ice Palace have simply not happened yet 2) Noelle's return to the Dark World is weird timeline wise without an additional Dark World 3) The Shelter Key is in the Ice Palace In my eyes, these are the three things that produce the vision for the Holiday Manor Dark World. But there is still so much to talk about. To give a bit of context for my future points, my general vision is as follows:

At some point in Chapter 5, Susie insists we return to the Church to pick up Jack. Even if he "died", Susie will insist we go back to see if we can fix him. While we're there, we meet Alvin, who has read the note. Alvin somehow knows enough about things to figure out what's going on and gives us the Church Code. That's one down.

I'm going to take a shot in the dark and guess that the Festival stuff in Chapter 5 occurs before the Dark World, not After. Noelle stuff happens here.

In Chapter 5, Susie learns that Asgore was the former Police Chief. She reasons he might know one of the codes. This drives us to Flower King, where a Dark World is. The main events of the chapter occur, and this culminates in us learning the Police Code.

Now armed with the knowledge from Asgore about Dess, Susie decides that Noelle deserves to know the truth about the Dark Worlds. We have to go back to her house anyway to get the Guitar Code. Might as well tell her it's all real while we're there, right?

We break into Holiday Manor. Susie insists that we get the Guitar code first, since we don't know how Noelle will react and we don't want to miss our chance. We enter Dess' room... but the Guitar is missing. Before we can figure out a new plan, the room fills with smoke, and the chapter concludes.

Chapter 6 happens. Noelle wakes up in the Dark World and maybe initially assumes it's another dream, but this time Susie corrects her. Etc etc.

We ultimately do battle with The Knight for our rematch. We fail to actually defeat them, but we're able to pry the Guitar code from them.

The fountain is sealed. Since we have to go back to Castle Town anyway to drop off recruits, Susie invites Noelle.

One last Castle Town visit occurs where we can make final preparations for the Shelter.

I'm now going to address the biggest counterpoints people often have to this sort of agenda.

THE "FIRST FIVE" AGENDA

The first five chapters seem to be a "set" in several ways. There are 5 Crystals. There are 5 Eggs. Gerson talks about 5 Chapters. The plan was to release 1-5. But I actually don't think this pattern is as solid as it may seem on first glance. The release plan I don't think is really worth reading into. Toby clearly was willing to change the plan to release Chapter 3-4 on their own. The Gerson stuff also isn't very definitive in my eyes. It's entirely reasonable to me that Toby just didn't want to foreshadow Chapter 6's events that heavily. Chapter 5 is the very next chapter, and there's a lot of stuff in Chapter 4 that directly foreshadows 5 in particular. Gerson's dialog is also quite vague.

You could read this in one of two ways: 1) Chapter 5 was written. There was supposed to be one more chapter (Chapter 6), but after Chapter 5, it all stopped, and Chapter 6 was never written, so Gerson can't talk about it. 2) Chapter 5 was written. There was one more after Chapter 5 (Chapter 6), but after that, there was supposed to be a 7th, that was never written. Personally, I think the latter interpretation is the more likely one. I'm willing to believe the reason that Gerson doesn't talk about 6 here is because it'd be too big of a spoiler for now. As for the Crystals... I'll get to that in a second. The Eggs, though, I don't really have that strong of a counter for. I will note however that the Man never says there are 5 eggs. He gives us instructions for every day of the week. If my vision is correct and Chapter 6 takes place between the day of 5 and 7, then it makes sense he didn't give us a hint for 6, because he's going to give us two eggs on the same "day".

THE CRYSTALS

Please read my thoughts on the Crystal Path here, as it's very important to understand this segment. This one is short, I promise.

I believe that Chapter 6 Holiday Manor actually works quite well with the Crystal quest ending in 5. Considering that we now can assume that we'll bring the 5 Crystals to Seam in Chapter 5, doesn't that kind of imply we'll have a use for them in Chapter 6? As I said in my outline, I think that we're going to fight The Knight. My guess right now is that this fight is where the Crystals make a difference. Normally, I think in Chapter 6, we lose the battle but win the war. We lose our duel to the Knight, but we get the Guitar code. But I think that with the lessons we'll have learned from the previous secret bosses, and whatever powers the Pure Crystal may give us, I think that we'll be able to win both. My proposal is that the "moment where Susie keeps fighting when everything is truly lost" I hypothesized in my earlier post is this Knight rematch. Susie has seen, time and time again, that anything can be beaten if she just keeps going. And so, on the Crystal route only, will Susie be able to get up and keep fighting, opening the way to potentially legitimately defeat The Knight. This has a lot of interesting narrative applications I don't think are within the scope of this post, but I think this would be one hell of a diversion point, and since it'd be happening at the end of 6, it leaves Chapter 7 open to fully diverge. Maybe I'll make a followup about this... So, ultimately, I think that there only being 5 crystals actually works quite well with Manor Dark World, as it provides the thing we're going to use the crystals on.

MISC. THOUGHTS

Why does Holiday Manor have a creepy basement with gaster noise playing? Feels like a weird thing to set up, but it could easily be set up for the Dark World. Hell, maybe that's what ROOTs is. Noelle and Susie talk about the Severed Hand crawling around down there, and, well...

FRIEND kinda looks like a hand, doesn't it? FRIEND does have Noelle connections, and is associated with basements, especially the ROOTs basements. Is it all buildup for FRIEND showing up here??? I don't know.

On the left side of Holiday Manor there is this door that we can not actually enter. This door seems to serve no purpose. Maybe we're going to enter through this back door?

The manor also has a number of these silly dancing santa things:

That also have weirdly specific battery mechanics. This is utilized for the closet sequence where we can use them to distract Kris, but wouldn't that just be perfect for a standard enemy throughout the Dark World? There's also stuff like the Guitar and Angel Doll. The Angel Doll as a darkner would almost certainly have thoughts on the fact that the SOUL was inside of it briefly, and the Guitar would almost certainly know the Shelter Code. In fact, there's even precedence for this.

The Fire Extinguisher darkner specifically knows the code, because it's written on it. Logically, the Guitar should know the code as well.

Oh yeah, also, remember that Silver Drake?

There just so happens to be what we would assume to be a pencil sketch drawing of a dragon right next to where the Shelter Code is stored.

CONCLUSION

Holiday Manor is just Actually Happening.

The SHELTER KEY is in the ICE PALACE. GO TO NORTHERNLIGHT.