Gamey Geemer

DESS REBELLED AGAINST HER FAMILY

This one is due to the fact that we see Dess's room in Chapter 4, which gives off a punk vibe, and then almost immediately afterwords we're introduced to Carol and how controlling she is. It is very easy to fill in the gaps, but at no points are we ever actually given the characterization that Dess rebelled against her family. In fact, Chapter 5 and the way Noelle talks about Dess to Kris over the game as a whole, specifically implies she was well loved.

Lets take a look at Dess's room, shall we?

It definitely gives off punk vibes. Between the posters and stop sign on the wall, and the drastically different color scheme to the rest of the Holiday Manor.

Examining Dess's room reveals a bunch of different items. To quote the game:

It's Dess's bed. Underneath are army rations, guitar picks, paintball gear, ice skates...

... and a badly traced drawing of a dragon.

Rollerblades, wiffle bat. Looking at these things makes your head hurt.

A violin, a flute, a microphone...

They all look very expensive, and very dented.

It's an oversized walk-in closet.

It's covered in band posters, and some handmade posters...

... for shows that may or may not have ever happened.

It's a shelf. In the front are all the holiday-themed games and movies...

... and at the back are all the scary games you never got to play.

It's a CD player. Underneath are tons of punk rock CDs... and one still-sealed ska CD.

It's a computer. The monitor is unplugged.

It's a hockey puck. Looks like it would hurt.

It's reasonable to assume a few things from all of this. Dess unquestionably liked music. Music related things are all over her room, which fits with Tenna calling her a musical prodigy in Chapter 3. There's a lot of sports stuff, so she was probably very active. She had some band posters, which we know from Chapter 5 that she was in a band with Asriel and Kris. And we do see some survival stuff in there as well.

Her room is untidy, disorganized, and clashes with the rest of the Holiday Manor. But there's nothing to suggest that she herself was rebelling against her family. The assumption comes in because we see Carol moments later, and she's very controlling. Especially towards Noelle.

We don't actually hear much regarding Dess's relationship with her family. Most characters in the game don't speak of Dess when a non-family member is present. However, Noelle speaks very fondly of Dess whenever it's just Kris around. What few lines Rudy does say of Dess, when it's just Kris around, are also positive. The photo book in Chapter 5 also shows a positive relationship between Dess and her father:

If someone was rebelling against their family, would they be doing a square dance with them?

It's possible that Dess rebelled against Carol specifically. We don't really know; the game doesn't say one way or another. What we DO see in game is that:

Guests were not allowed in Dess's room.

Noelle acts as if the room itself is meant to be preserved, and Susie was the reason she stayed in the room waiting for the "mouse."

Carol was clearly upset that Susie was playing the guitar, and Noelle tried to excuse it by saying that Noelle herself wanted to hear it. Implying that it wasn't just about the Shelter code.

At the very least, at no point does the game tell us that Dess was rebelling against her family. She might have been a bit of a punk, and we can't determine if she butted antlers with Carol, but what little we see suggests her family thought positively of her. Speaking of which...

DESS WAS ONLY GIFTED WITH THE GUITAR

I saw this one come up a few times both at Reddit and Tumblr. I assume it probably comes from people seeing the dented instruments in Dess's room. There is, to quote, "a violin, a flute, a microphone" that are all very expensive, and apparently dented too, in addition to her guitar.

Dess is said in Chapter 3 to be a musical prodigy by Tenna, and he explicitly calls attention to her guitar AND her singing ability. I made a whole post on music, it's connection to Ralsei and Noelle, and what it means for my Ralsei and Dess theory.

One of the things I noted, however, is that the Holiday Manor has a piano present in it. When you go up to it, Susie will ask if Noelle plays it. And Noelle indicates, hesitantly, that she doesn't, and that "No one really... plays it anymore."

If you look at Deltarune's story, you'll see that the Holidays will openly discuss Dess whenever it's just Kris around. But whenever a third party is present (such as Susie) they will no longer address her by name. In Noelle's case, she simply stops bringing up her sister entirely. The entire scene at Noelle's house is a case of this, and is consistent with Noelle not bringing up her sister. She doesn't tell Susie who the room belonged to, and she doesn't tell Susie who the guitar belonged to either. Even when faced with getting in trouble with Carol.

Noelle is telling us, in her own way, that Dess is the person who most likely played this piano. It's very unlikely that the Holidays had a piano just for Kris, after all.

DESS WAS ABUSIVE TO KRIS

This one is complicated. The game makes it clear that Dess was overly protective of Noelle. Kris used to prank Noelle, as was noted in Chapter 1, and Dess responded by whacking Kris with a wiffle bat. This is again referenced in Chapter 2 should you do nothing at the Annoying Mouse Puzzle, where Noelle makes it clear that Dess would have protected her from Kris's pranks. And of course, if you examine the objects in Dess's room, you get this line:

Rollerblades, wiffle bat. Looking at these things makes your head hurt.

For those unfamiliar, Wiffle Ball is basically a version of baseball where the bats are hollowed out and made of plastic, and the balls are light, plastic, and have holes in them. While you could certainly still hurt someone with these things, especially if you whacked them constantly with the bat, they are much less dangerous than a regular baseball bat.

As we see in Chapter 5, however, Dess was on good terms with Kris. The trio of Dess, Kris, and Asriel formed a band. Something that Pizzpants mentioned:

You wouldn't really form a band with someone you were abusive to, or that you disliked.

Likewise, Noelle mentions in Chapter 2 that the four of them (Dess, Asriel, Kris, and Noelle) were always exploring. There is a scene in Chapter 2 where she mentions this to Kris, and talks about the nostalgia of exploring the forest behind the graveyard. You can also see the photo book of the four of them performing together at past festivals too.

Long story short, the game makes it clear that Dess was protective of Noelle from Kris's pranks. But there's no indication that Dess was outright abusive towards Kris. They played in a band together, explored together, did activities as kids together. Heck, Kris seems to have pranked her too at least once.

Speaking of the fact that they were kids...

DESS AND ASRIEL ARE COLLEGE AGE

This one is a fanart issue mostly, and I don't say this as a knock against fanart. I personally love them and spend hours browsing Tumblr. However, most fanart portray Dess and Asriel as being college age. Often significantly older than Kris and Noelle.

But Toriel sets the record straight early on in chapter 1. They probably were only a couple years older, at best.

Those who did the Thank You ARG for Chapter 5's Weird Route determined in the second round that Noelle is probably 16 years old in the game proper. If you answered "16 years", you got:

Then, "It was the first time she ever smiled in her life."

Seeing as Asriel is at university now, it is safe to assume he is probably 18 to 20 years old, and thus 2 to 4 years older than Kris and Noelle. Chapter 5 confirmed he was romantically interested in Dess, and that they won Festival King and Queen. Realistically, the two of them were probably not much older than Kris and Noelle.

Especially if Kris, Asriel, and Dess were all in a band. And ESPECIALLY if Toriel still had to use parental controls to lock Dess out of music videos she wasn't suppose to see!

Speaking of those music videos, there's one last thing we need to check.

KRIS LOOKED UP TO DESS AS AN OLDER SISTER FIGURE.

This one is a maybe in terms of if it's true or not. We don't really know if Kris looked up to Dess or not. Part of this information comes from Tenna, who states:

Dess, rocking her guitar and singing along with those nasty, nasty songs!

Given that the Dark World in Chapter 3 was created by Kris, and that Tenna is trying to make them laugh and smile again, there's a possibility that Kris did find Dess cool. Given that Dess is most likely the reason for the piano in the Holiday Manor, and that Kris is a pianist and plays that piano in Chapter 4, it's entirely possible they learned from or because of Dess.

But we're never given any further information regarding this. Kris rarely brings up Dess in the narration until we explore Dess's room in Chapter 4, and it isn't until the festival in Chapter 5 that we see Kris bring her up any more.

So we can't really say "Kris looked up to Dess like an older sister figure" yet. It might be true, but we don't know.

The rest of this misconception seems to come from DessKnight theories and speculation. Many of Kris's poses are similar to that of the Knight. But as we don't know the Knight's identity at this time, we can't use this as proof that Kris looked up to Dess.

SUMMARY

I'm not going to address the elephant in the room that is the Roaring Knight any further. Chapter 5 did a number on all existing Roaring Knight theories, and talking about it goes against the point of this post.

Instead, I wanted to show what the game is explicitly telling us about the girl known as December "Dess" Holiday. Not what is a red herring. Not what is fan theories or a fan creations. But what we can actually confirm from scenes in the game, and only drawing assumptions when they're explicitly logical (such as Asriel's age.)