I’m sure a lot of people have already pointed this out, but I do think the parallels between Asriel’s role in Deltarune and Undertale are really interesting. (Elaboration under cut)
Hometown seems to be in some sort of stasis with little connection to the outside world: the internet has been down for days, and seemingly the only way to leave is blocked off with police tape. Additionally, it has the vibes of a small rural town that people feel trapped in, especially with Noelle’s comments during the chapter 5 weird route (“Tell me to grow wings... And let's fly out of this stupid town!”) The fact that Asriel “escaped” and is at college and the promise that he will be home soon feels very significant, which is probably why a lot of people think him returning will coincide with the Roaring or some other major endgame scenario (which I agree seems likely.) In certain interpretations, these restrictions represent the literal restrictions of player/character agency in video games, which the weird route appears to be a subversion of (the lake scene in particular seems to represent breaking out of bounds, given the Mother 1 breadcrumbs reference and Noelle’s known propensity for finding glitches in video games.)
In Undertale, monsters are trapped in the underground in a more literal sense. The one to ultimately free them is the returned Asriel, who is implied to be the Angel of Undertale’s version of the prophecy, or “the one who has seen the surface” (at least in the pacifist route). Like in Deltarune, Asriel (with Chara) is the only monster to have escaped the underground after the barrier was put in place, even if only for a while.
All of this makes me think that Asriel will potentially play some role in “freeing” hometown from its stasis. However, I don’t think this means he’s intended to be “the Angel” like he was in Undertale, since Deltarune’s version of the prophecy is quite different from Undertale’s and the Angel itself seems to be an almost antagonistic force whose “heaven” must be “banished”.
If we believe Dess is the knight (which I currently still do), then the narrative role of Dess/the Knight is similar to that of Asriel/Flowey in Undertale, as many have already pointed out. Given that they seem to have been very close before Dess “disappeared” (Asriel’s love letters), I imagine any kind of reunion between them near the end of the game would be extremely significant.
All of this probably also has interesting implications for Ralsei and Flowery who are both also representations of Asriel/Flowey in different ways, as well as Kris who can be seen as representing Chara.
I have no definitive conclusions from any of this and this is all a pretty surface-level reading of the parallels… I just think theyre really cool and wanted to acknowledge them
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