Guys, I need to go off. I need to rage, this makes me so irrationally angry. I NEED to talk about this, I need people to understand my RAAAAGE! Minor spoilers for Deltarune Chapter five, not much, but just a little. And if you like Rudy Knight, you should probably leave, unless you want to be called stupid to your face. I won't yuck your yum, go off.
I hate Rudy Knight with my entire being, I despise it more than anyone else in this fandom. You hate Rudy Knight more? NIT SCIENTIFICALLY POSSIBLE! I am Rudy Knightβs biggest op, if Rudy Knight had no haters then I am dead and buried. When I first heard it, I thought it was a joke answer like Papyrus Knight that people believed ironically because itβs funny. The chronically ill old man in his death bed? Sure, that guy is going to cause the apocalypse. Then I saw people genuinely placing Rudy at the top with complete sincerity, and two hour long videos compiling all the evidence completely straight faced. People actually believe thisβ¦ this isnβt a jokeβ¦ HAVE YOU LOST YOUR DAMN MINDS!?
There is so much evidence against this theory it isnβt even funny. The obvious that every Rude Knight supporter has to dispute is the Knight kidnapping Undyne. You can argue that Rudy can accomplish what he does in the dark world because itβs the dark world, it does whatever the plot needs it to. But the Knight leaves the dark world to take Undyne to the shelter. We know Rudy doesnβt stay the knight in the light world if he was the knight, because we see him as Rudy in the light world. You seriously going to convince me that the man in the hospital for a terminal illness can carry a cop that can suplex a boulder and would certainly be putting up a fight, ALL THE WAY ACROSS TOWN!? What the hell are you smoking, because I want some! The level of mental gymnastics Iβve seen knight Rudy truthers go through should earn them a gold medal, or turn them into pretzels.
Even if this logistical obstacle didnβt exist, this theory would still be horribly stupid and braindead. Rudy is a major character, we know about his characterization and personality, and itβs completely incompatible with the knight. You all understand that the Knight is trying to kill the fun gang, right? Or at the very least try to harm and debilitate them so they canβt be stopped. The Fun Gang consists of Kris, Noelleβs childhood friend and very close with the entire Holiday family, and Susie, Noelleβs fat girl crush that Rudy supports. You genuinely believe that Rudy would be willing to hurt or even kill Kris and Susie? Even if Kris is working with the Knight, they still greatly injure them and but them in serious danger, on top of hurting their family and loved ones. The knight kidnaps ASGORE, Krisβ father and Rudyβs village bestie (and possible collage gay fling). Rudy would not be willing to hurt any of the Dremmurs, let alone Asgore of all people!
On top of all this, thereβs Noelle. The knight has at least some knowadge of the prophecy, and Noelle is in the prophecy either as βthe girlβ or βthe girl with hope crossed on her heart.β Noelle will be joining the fight against the knight in the future, which means the Knight is going to end up fighting her. You genuinely believe Rudy would be willing to hurt Noelle directly, or even the people she deeply cared about? The thing with Rudy Knight is that he would have the power to help Noelle, and would be choosing to do nothing about it. He knows that she is being abused by Carol, to the point he refuses to call Carol his wife, and is actively doing everything he can to support and ease her in his weakened state. You mean to tell me that if Rude had all the powers of the Knight, he wouldnβt kick down Carolβs door and take Noelle far away from her abusive ass? To say that Rudy is the knight is to say he is complacent in the abuse Noelle suffers.
Thatβs not even all, folks! Rudy Knight theory commonly states that his motivation for being the knight and causing the roaring is to get Dess back. But to do that, he would at the very least, have to damn his living daughter to THE APOCALYPSE! At worst, heβd have to KILL HER! Do you genuinely believe that Rudy would sacrifice Noelle to get Dess back, that heβd rather have Dess alive than Noelle? You genuinely think he looks at Noelle and thinks βit should have been you, not herβ? The man that plays video games with his daughter after school every day, that playfully tells Susie to be good to his daughter or heβll get her, who pulled himself out of his bedridden state just long enough to hear her sing in choir and decorate the festival so her and Susieβs date would go perfectly. That guy, Deltaruneβs #1 dad, HIM?! This idsβt just character assassination, this is character ANNIHILATION! This twist would be so bad it would make Hans look like SHAKESPEARE!
On top of all of this, you want to know what happens to Rudy in Chapter 5? HE FUCKING DIES! People have been saying the phone call at the lake refers to Rudy falling off the ladder, but if that were true, it would have been βfell off,β not βfallen down.β We know that the state of death in monsters before their body turns to dust is referred to as being βfallen down,β which means at best Rudy is in a coma, and at worst is already clinically dead. Could you possibly resuscitate a monster in this universe similar to humans since they have blood and thus hearts? Maybe, but he sure as hell wouldnβt be able to get up and yoink the 200 pound goat king, thatβs for sure! If weβre ruling out Carol being the knight because itβs impossible for her to get to the church before Susie and Kris, then this has got to like, DOUBLE disqualify Rudy. Carol being capable of teleportation is far more likely than Rudy being able to carry both Undyne and the bear that is Asgore all the way across town when he barely has the strength to stand.
Now, this is going to sound a little rediculous, a bit βsocial justice warriorβ-y of me, but youβre going to have to hear me out here. Rudy knight REEKS of ableism. Rudy is one of only TWO disabled monsters in hometown, and the other one is so unimportant he doesn't have a talk sprite. Making the one relevent disabled person the primary villian is... sus, at the very least. Rudy Knight has three disputes to how Rudy can be the knight while disabled; he either chose to become the knight to cure his illness, his knight form puts so much strain on his body it made him ill, or he's just straight up faking it. One is just the troupe of disabled characters wanting nothing more than to be cured of their disability to the point they become one note despite many disabled people not wanting a cure, one is just the ableist belief that disabled people are disabled because they're bad people and their disabilities are some form of punishment for being eeeevil, and I don't even have to explain why claiming a disabled person is faking their disability is ableist. As a disabled person, if you were to ask me, the most disrespectful thing that you can do to a disabled character is miraculously give them the ability to do the thing their disability disables them to do. All it does is erase a character's disability entirely, and further dehumanizes real people with those disabilities. That's what Rudy Knight is, just a bunch of ableist writing tropes in a trench coat.
Do I think that Rudy Knight believers are ableist people that want to dehumanize and erase disabled people from media? No, ableism is a deeply systemic thing, and many people do it subconsciously without realizing. These are writing troupes, pitfalls writers often fall into because they're commonly done, stereotypes slotted into writing. It's because these show up in media so often that it becomes normalized, that's how we get speeches from the head of public health claiming autistic people's only desire in life is to be cured. People think disabilities are the universe's punishments for wrongdoing because the main villains in pop culture are often scarred, disfigured, amputees, or disabled in one way or another. This is Toby Radiation Fox we're talking about here! If Toby Fox is anything, he goes against the grain of common troupes and subverts them. It's not only disrespectful to disabled people to think Rudy would be the knight, but also disrespectful to Toby's capabilities as a writer!
I do not wish bodily harm, discomfort, or misfortune on any Rudy Knight truthers. At worse it's systemic and subconscious ableism, which is pretty bad, but not "I hope you stub your toe and your pillow is hit on both sides" bad. What I do wish upon them is that their favorite piece of media gets a shitty movie adaptation that becomes more popular than the origional and accepted as the default interpretation, to the point people believe it's the origional source material and overwrites its origional cannon. Because THATS WHAT I FEEL LIKE LISTENING TO RUDY KNIGHT THEOEY! YOU PEOPLE HAVE NO MEDIA LIETRACY! THE MEDIA LITERACY ORC HAS BETTER READING COMPREHENSION THAN YOU! I AM RAAAAGIIIIIING!
I'm sorry, I just really had to get all of this off my chest. Please tell me I'm not the only one that thinks this, I can't be the only one THIS mad Rudy Knight theory. Please I need to know I'm not the only one, I need community. Pleeeeaaaase!
