sillycoded individual

Many alternate theories have been presented, the most prominent of which is the “pure darkness” theory, which espouses that Ralsei has no object but is instead tied to the concept of Darkness itself, and thus could be anywhere that a dark fountain appeared. Though this resolves the logistical issues, however, such an explanation overlooks the critical emotional resonance that makes the horned headband theory so compelling to many of its advocates.

For a long time, these contradictions seemed irreconcilable and incompatible with one another. However, through Chapter 5, we have been given a few more precious clues about Ralsei’s nature and his abilities, courtesy of Flowery, a being that appears to share many of his powers while being tied to a definitive object, in this case Asgore’s golden flower. And it was while analysing these clues that I stumbled across a solution that not only neatly ties those disparate threads together in a compelling way, but also explains so much of the mystery surrounding Ralsei, as well as his connections to Kris.

What follows is an attempt to outline this case, and to argue that Ralsei being Kris’s horned headband is not only the most emotionally resonant and narratively-satisfying possibility of those presented, but also the one that ties together most, if not all major loose ends regarding the dark worlds, Ralsei’s abilities, and what connects them together, in a way that only this interpretation can explain.

Part 1: That stupid flower guy stuck me in here!

This essay was initially going to begin by addressing the ways that Flowery’s and Ralsei’s powers appear to be highly similar to each other, if not outright identical in places. However, I’ve decided that this is less important than the fact that these similarities exist at all, as it suggests something fundamental about the nature of those powers.

Firstly, that there doesn’t need to be a connection to the “pure” darkness in order for a darkner to have those abilities.

Secondly, following on from the above, that there is a strong case that if Flowery is tied to a tangible object – in this instance Asgore’s golden flower – then it’s highly likely that Ralsei is too, as the parallels between them would suggest they share similar origins as well as powers.

Thirdly, we know that Asgore has had the golden flower that became Flowery ever since his college days; i.e. well before he married Toriel and they had Asriel together – which suggests an extremely high level of care and devotion towards that flower over nearly two entire decades.

And fourthly, again building on the above point, the way that Flowery treats Asgore serves as a mirror and counterpoint to the way that Ralsei treats Kris, suggesting a further hint to their connection.

Taken together, we can see that only one interpretation fits all of the above points, and it’s Kris’s horned headband. It’s a physical object that resembles Ralsei’s own pink horns, we know that Kris wore it constantly for months before it went missing, and that they likely treated it as their most precious possession. In addition, we can infer that the level of care and devotion lavished onto an object is directly proportional to the power of the darkner that emerges from that object, which would explain both why Ralsei and Flowery both have their awesome abilities, and the way that they treat the lightners who imbued them with that care in the first place.

So… case closed, right? Oh, no, my dear reader. We’ve barely begun to scratch the surface.

Part 2: Walked through ‘em

Amongst the impressive repertoire of powers that Flowery flaunts at us throughout chapter 5 – powers which we can safely assume are also accessible to Ralsei – the ability to walk through walls might seem like a rather quaint one. After all, if they’re able to teleport, alter their combat statistics and change the very dark world around them with a mere thought, there are many other ways that such obstacles could be bypassed that would both be far simpler and less time-consuming.

But being able to pass through what the game treats as solid barriers is interesting for a different reason to the above, and that’s because we’ve directly seen Ralsei perform this trick.

Twice.

Way back in Chapter 2, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, Susie will push Ralsei out of the way to check on Kris after the Spamton NEO fight. She’ll push him beyond the boundary of the narrow corridor they’re in, and into a spot where a wall should be. A spot that we are unable to access ourselves in the normal course of gameplay.

And we see the reprise of this trick in Chapter 5, except this time done deliberately by Ralsei to allow him and Kris to circumvent a wall of spikes. And this is highly significant, as it turns the prior example of him ignoring boundaries from a potential accident or oversight to a very deliberate part of his powerset that he is capable of using at will. And if that’s the case, then an entire new raft of possibilities open up for us when exploring what else he can do – such as how he travels between dark worlds.

But wait… am I suggesting that Ralsei walks to each newly-opened dark fountain from Castle Town each and every chapter? And the answer is no, I’m not suggesting that.

He outright tells us.

Part 3: I felt a dark presence and hurried over!

It’s always struck me as funny how Ralsei looks like he just finished running over to Kris and Susie whenever he appears in a new dark world. Indeed, the only time he doesn’t do this is for Chapter 5, where he is intercepted by Flowery beforehand – who has the same abilities as he does and probably noticed his arrival immediately. And now it’s even funnier, because there’s every possibility that’s actually what has happened.

But wait. How can that be right? How does Ralsei move between dark worlds when there isn’t anything connecting them? And furthermore, how can he possibly do so while his light world object remains in the same place? Surely travelling to a different room would be impossible for a darkner tethered to an object like I’m suggesting he is?

Let’s tackle these in order. First, travelling between dark worlds. I fear we might have fallen victim to the Mandela Effect here, because Ralsei himself only ever refers to the Dark World, singular. Certainly, there are multiple dark FOUNTAINS, contained within different rooms scattered throughout Hometown, but any references to them being their own distinct worlds are only made by Susie and others, who are likely less knowledgeable on the mechanics of how the world works… unlike Ralsei, who explicitly says he knows the “rules” of his world.

The distinction here, between separate, isolated dark worlds and a singular interconnected Dark World, is highly significant. The former suggests that each dark world is more like an island floating in an ocean of light, which would make it impossible for Ralsei to get to by foot. The latter instead implies an entire world that runs parallel to the light, obscured from lightners until revealed by the meta-darkness of a Fountain – this model would handily allow Ralsei to traverse the entire world by walking through the blank spaces, even if he was tethered to an object.

Which leads us to the second question – how does Ralsei persist across fountains if his object cannot move with him? More to that point, is it even possible? Can it be demonstrably proven to have happened? And the answer is yes, actually! Remember this goober?

Lancer makes an incursion into Castle Town from his own Card Kingdom next door, which in light world terms means he travelled from the abandoned classroom into the supply closet, and thus between two separate and distinct spaces within both realms. Are we to infer that his light world object was moved into the closet from the classroom by another force, and then returned by that same force shortly afterward? Or, as is the simpler and more likely answer, was Lancer able to “project” his darkner-self across the threshold into Ralsei’s realm, becoming separated from his object, however temporarily? And if we go with the latter, simpler explanation, how much of a stretch is it to suggest that Ralsei is capable of doing the same thing himself, only on a much larger scale?

So, to recap: Chapter 5 showed that a darkner with similar powers to Ralsei is tied to a light world object that was deeply cherished by a Lightner, and that same darkner appears single-mindedly devoted to that lightner as a consequence. One of the abilities explicitly shown to us is to walk through walls, which could explain how Ralsei could traverse from fountain to fountain while still being tethered to an object, and Lancer in Chapter one shows that even “ordinary” darkners are capable of travelling to and existing in alternate kingdoms, if only for a short spell.

Crucially, none of this actually proves that Ralsei is the Horned Headband. But what it DOES do is give us a starting point from which we can begin to explore what the implications of this idea are and the subsequent impact it would have on the story, themes and motifs of Deltarune as a whole.

The pieces are arranged before us. Now, it’s time to put them together.

Part 4: I’ve been waiting alone here… my whole life

The first question that arises once we adopt the premise of Ralsei being the headband is simple: where is the headband located in the light world? To which the obvious answer would be, in the school’s supply closet. It’s not unreasonable to assume that Kris lost their headband one day, it was handed in to the school, and then stored away and forgotten about. A clear, concise and simple explanation.

Unfortunately, everything else tells a slightly different tale.

You may have already spotted the first problem with this idea, which is that Kris is known by most everybody in Hometown, owing to their mother being a schoolteacher, their father being the chief of police, their brother being the town’s golden boy, and them being the only human in a town otherwise full of monsters. And if they knew Kris and the Dreemurrs, they would also know about the fact that the human would always wear their fake horns wherever they went – they did so for months after all, if Toriel is to be believed. So, if someone had found that headband lying around, they’d immediately know it’d be Kris’s, wouldn’t they? So, why wouldn’t they return it to its rightful owner? Why would anyone put such a treasured keepsake away in such a manner?

Now, doubtless there are many potential reasons for such an act – a misguided attempt to get Kris to “grow up” and accept reality, or some kind of a prank which was never resolved, or perhaps even just plain ol’ racism. And perhaps, if this was the only problem with the idea of the headband being in the supply closet, my argument would be a rather flimsy one. Next, we should turn our attention to the location of the supply closet itself – slap-bang in the middle of the school, where presumably anybody could just walk into it (the fact that no-one ever does throughout the entirety of four in-game days notwithstanding).

Which begs the question: how did no-one else come across it if the fountain has been there this whole time? We can argue that the back end of the school seems largely unused compared to the front, considering the main two classrooms and the students’ lockers are near the entrance. So, perhaps no one else goes there, except in rare cases where additional supplies are needed. However, the longer that we allow for the closet fountain to exist, the less and less this explanation holds up, as the likelihood of no-one going to the supply closet for a prolonged period – say, weeks or months, or perhaps even years – is effectively zero. This suggests to us that the fountain was created very recently – in fact, on the very same day that Kris and Susie stumble into it in Chapter 1.

Part 5: I hope this place can become… like a second home to you

Then, there is the question of why Castle Town is empty in the first place. You would expect a supply closet to be brimming with items like chalk, or spare markers, or some sort of surplus stationary… and yet, none of these items manifest in any form, as darkners or consumables or otherwise. But what does manifest is a grand castle, and a town that seems to be made entirely out of cardboard. Susie says it best when they first arrive:

An innocuous and entirely-expected thing to say… but placed against the fact that aside from this the supply closet seems entirely empty, something begins to become clear – whoever created this fountain seems to have emptied the closet of anything that could otherwise become a darkner, and then they also apparently arranged certain elements within that closet in such a way that it formed a castle with a town just outside it. In other words: Castle Town is not a natural or incidental occurrence.

It was designed.

This might seem like a leap in logic, but we have already seen this process in action once before, with the TV world in Kris’s front room. Like the closet fountain, it starts in a strange, unformed wasteland, a place filled with sentient piles of dust, strange wobbly things, and darkness as far as the eye can see, before developing into the TV world we are all familiar with. Before the events of Chapter 3, we see Kris set the stage by turning on the TV before opening the dark fountain, which is presumably how Tenna is able to accrue such power in the resulting world despite not having been plugged in for a long time. And, just south of the Green Room, a Shuttah will explain the lore of the place that used to be called the “purple cliffs”, reinforcing the notion that the TV world was “staged” specifically by Kris, overriding what was there before it.

So, what if Castle Town was “staged” in a similar way? Designed specifically as a meeting point for the three heroes at the beginning of their adventure, a convenient backdrop against which a sanitised version of the Prophecy can be espoused, and a home base that they can always return to when needed? Indeed, if this was the case, it would explain why the supply closet was entirely empty, and could also explain how no-one else had managed to stumble across it, as it was only made very recently.

Even if we accept this, however, there are still some glaring inconsistencies that don’t quite mesh together. Firstly, Ralsei stating that he’s been alone his whole life – this seems at-odds with the idea that the closet fountain was only made just before the beginning of the game, because it would mean that he was only truly alone for a short while since becoming a darkner. And while we can say that he does have a skewed sense of time passing, it does seem like a strange thing for someone literally defined by their loneliness to have only truly been “alone” for a morning.

Then there are the references to Ralsei experiencing everything as if for the first time, and not having a clear idea of who he is. This might not seem so strange, but compare it to King in Chapter 5, who will recount how he was scarred in detail:

I remember it like it was yesterday... A blissful time. An era of harmony, with the Lightners. A golden age, where we were held, cherished... But one day, the hand of a Lightner slipped... and disaster struck. I was torn. Torn with a scar that could be seen even from the back. A single scarred king... that rendered the whole kingdom... Obsolete.

This all presumably happened in the light world, and yet King here has contextualised it as part of his life experience – despite not having technically been “alive” at that point. So why does Ralsei not have such background context to pull from? If his object was indeed placed in the closet for the purposes of allowing the three heroes to meet, then why does he not allude to it, or subconsciously contextualise it like King and other darkners seem to be able to?

Perhaps he was always in the closet? But then, wouldn’t he recall being surrounded by other objects before they were taken, and wouldn’t he remember that shuffling around as well, the same way that Shuttah describes the imposition of TV world in Chapter 3? Indeed, the closer we interrogate the differences between Ralsei’s experience and almost every other darkner we come across, the more inconsistencies become apparent, until the only feasible explanation left to us is that Ralsei’s light world object has somehow been sealed off from the outside world for a very long time, lost somewhere very dark, where no-one has dared to venture for a long, long time.

Where do we know that fits that description…?

Part 6: What if we could go darker than dark?

…I couldn’t think of a way to lead into this point very well.

But yes, this is the central supposition of the entire essay – the idea that Ralsei’s light world object, Kris’s horned headband, is not located in the supply closet, or in any of the other dark worlds created throughout the course of the game… but is instead trapped somewhere inside the very first dark world that was created years before the story began. The Shelter.

But, before I explain my reasoning for why I think this is the case, I want to go over all the strange little inconsistencies and puzzlers surrounding Ralsei’s character across the last five chapters of Deltarune, and how this interpretation best addresses and solves them.

At a stroke, this explains Ralsei’s prophecy panel in Chapter 4:

This did not make sense to me when I first came across it, as though he started this journey alone, he certainly hasn’t remained so from Chapter 2 onwards. And whatever else you might want to call Castle Town, it certainly doesn’t fit the bill for “Deepest Dark”. His object being in the Shelter, however, would allow for this part of the prophecy to be 100% correct, as he will technically have been alone for the entire duration of Deltarune… and for all the intervening years between that fountain opening and the start of the game, which also better fits his assertion that he’s been waiting his entire life for the prophecy to begin.

It also gives an explanation for why Ralsei seemingly has no memory of being a light world object – after being trapped in darkness for years, completely alone, it’s likely that any memories of his time as an object are either deeply repressed or otherwise completely erased. Other darkners like King, Tenna and Spamton can hold memories of being in their light world forms because for them, they’ve been in those forms for most of their existence, and the darkness merely provided them with the will to generate a backstory from those experiences. But for Ralsei, who would have been a darkner for much, MUCH longer, those experiences are much further back in time for him, which could perhaps make his ability to come up with his own story based on those experiences extremely difficult, if not absolutely impossible. Hence these lines in Chapter 2:

It also gives a reason why he wouldn’t have bothered furnishing a room for himself in his own castle. We know that he prioritises every other resident of Castle Town over himself, going so far as to give Queen and Tenna fully-furn ished rooms... even so, stumbling into his own empty room comes as a massive shock, because we already know that he is capable of building his own room in a matter of seconds if he so desired. But once we consider that he isn’t even physically at the castle, his insistence that he doesn’t need a room begins to make more sense. The other darkners’ objects are physically present within the supply closet and so need to be “placed” somewhere. Ralsei’s object, however is not, and thus does not “need” its own place. After all, why bother making something for yourself if you’re not even technically “there” in the first place?

Part 7: The culmination of your being

An interesting question arises from the above, which we have not yet considered: how long can Ralsei be apart from his light world object? Is there hard time limit, after which he has to return to wherever his object is? Or is he capable of being apart from it indefinitely? The hints we get from the game would suggest that the former is more likely to be correct, and chiefly that’s because of the other major protagonist who cannot be apart from a core part of their being for too long, that being Kris and their SOUL. Indeed, once you stop and think about it, the parallels being set up between the two characters verge on the uncanny.

And so, if this is correct, it means that Ralsei would have to return to the depths of the shelter in order to reunite with the headband. This would absolutely preclude him from being able to sleep in his own room at Castle Town, and it might even explain why he disappears during his “DOWN” state in battles – he would be forced to return to his “true” body in the Shelter to recuperate.

And yet, the strongest evidence we have that this is the case isn’t Kris’s situation, regardless of how neat the parallels between them might be. Rather, it’s in the Chapter 5 secret boss fight against Pink.

Yes. THAT one.

This battle begins innocuously enough, until the Fun Gang fills up her “doki doki” meter, whereupon Mew Mew, the darkner form of the doll that Pink is possessing, begins to activate and assert itself. The resulting shock causes the two beings to split – one being the doll-turned-darkner, the other a spirit form of the same doll that is actually the Mad Dummy ghost, and thus a lightner. Forced apart, the composite being begins to malfunction and degrade, and Ralsei explains that they must reunite or else they will both be destroyed.

But how does he know about this specific interaction? This has literally never happened in any of our adventures prior, with any other darkner that we’ve encountered. Even fringe cases like Spamton and Gerson do not exhibit any such similar symptoms. So, how can Ralsei possibly know enough about it to explain it to Pink? How, that is, unless he too has already experienced something similar?

The comparison, of course, is not one-to-one, and in fact this situation aligns closer with Kris and the SOUL’s predicament. But we’ve already discussed that a darkner being forced to return to their light world object periodically already mirrors this exact situation, and as a darkner-lightner composite being, Pink’s condition could be seen to be analogous to both Kris and Ralsei, where they cannot be apart from some core aspect of themselves without dying or being destroyed in a similar way. In any case, I believe that those parallels are entirely intentional, and part of the goal of Pink’s battle from a design standpoint was to convey this notion of separation-of-self leading to destruction.

This is, I believe, all of the relevant evidence that points to the horned headband being lost in the Shelter as being true – in other words, the “how” of this theory. But what about the “why”? Why is Kris’s headband in the Shelter, the very first dark fountain that Asgore alludes to in Chapter 5, and presumably the same place where December Holiday disappeared?

Part 8: You can never wash it all away

Kris was given a red horned headband to wear in lieu of their horns growing in, and they kept it with them constantly for months. During this time, their family, the Dreemurrs, and the Holidays, the family next door, were close. Their four children – Asriel, Noelle, December and Kris – always hung out together, round each others’ houses, or going out exploring in the woods behind the church.

And then, something happened. December goes missing. The families drift apart. The Dreemurrs’ idyllic family life is shattered beyond repair. Asriel leaves for college. And Kris retreats deeper and deeper into themself, having lost their horned headband around the same time – a symbol of the illusion of their early life and identity shattering to pieces.

Years later, a dark fountain opens in the supply closet. Together with their new friends Susie and Ralsei, Kris journeys to seal the dark fountains that appear across hometown, their SOUL being the only thing capable of performing this feat. But, unbeknownst to their allies, they’re also working with the enemy, the Roaring Knight, in order to fulfil a “promise” that they made some time before the events of the game. The nature of this promise compels them to resist their own fate, and the control exerted over them by a higher-dimensional Player, in order to create the conditions necessary for it to be fulfilled.

Then, in Chapter 5, Asgore winds up revealling that the event that sparked the tragedy, that caused Dess to disappear, and everything else following on from that, was the creation of a dark fountain.

Ever since that horrible day... I've... only blamed myself for what happened. All I ever wanted... was to prove it wasn't my fault. To make sure it would never happen again. That it was all because of...

The "Dark world" that Asgore recounts here is likely the same one that currently exists in the Shelter, and that was presumably never sealed. A fountain that appears to be directly correlated to Dess’s disappearance, and Kris losing their headband. A fountain that Kris finds themself returning to at the end of Chapter 3, in pursuit of the Knight, and in service to some “promise” relating to the Knight, and the shelter, and the event that supposedly claimed Dess’s life.

The promise, which pits Kris directly against their friends and fellow heroes of the Prophecy, comes across as more of an atonement, for something they had done, or something they had caused to happen. There is a strong sense that, whatever this promise entails, it is taking a tremendous physical and emotional toll upon them, and is very likely to result in them sacrificing some or all of themself in order to fulfil it. And yet, nothing can sway them from carrying it out – not their new friends finding out, not the fear of what may happen to them… nothing.

In light of this, it seems very likely that the dark fountain in the Shelter was opened by none other than Kris themself, and it was this that caused everything else – the disappearance of Dess, the knock-on-effects of that disappearance, and the loss of their horned headband… leading to Ralsei’s creation as a darkner. This is the version of events that most squares with what we know of Kris, and also allows us to explain why their horned headband ended up in the Shelter, which neatly ties him into this theory.

And so, now that the “why” and the “how” of this theory have been established, I would like to present a rough timeline of events leading on from Kris receiving the Horns, right up to the very end of Chapter 5, to show how this would weave into the canon storyline.

Part 9: A brief timeline of events

Kris receives the horned headband as a mollification so that they will not worry about their horns “growing in”. They wear this headband for months, until the incident in the Shelter, where Dess goes missing and the horned headband is lost. In the dark world, the headband becomes Ralsei, a darkner with extraordinary powers and knowledge owing to the intense connection the headband had to Kris. However, he is completely isolated and alone. During his time there, his ability to tell his own story is eroded due to the length of time he spends in the darkness.

This situation persists for several years, until one day a new fountain opens up. This is the closet fountain, which has been set up ahead of time to be completely empty aside from a model of a castle. Out of curiosity and a desire to escape his prison, Ralsei utilises his ability to walk through walls to travel to that fountain to investigate, discovering an empty castle town. Realising that the prophecy in his head is starting to kick into motion, he crowns himself the prince of this new kingdom and awaits the arrival of the other two heroes, Kris and Susie. Though it would seem that neither Kris nor Ralsei recognise each other at this point, nonetheless he feels an instinctual pull towards this lightner who once gave him purpose. Knowing that their time together is destined to end in tragedy, Ralsei resolves to be as kind as possible, and to make their brief adventures as fun and lighthearted as he can.

Not long after he arrives, the second new fountain in the abandoned classroom is opened, and the adventure begins. At its conclusion, he returns to his object in the shelter, but not before altering the castle to include rooms for Kris, Susie and Lancer. His ability to sense when new fountains have opened allows him to travel to those locations ahead of time, enabling him to join Kris and Susie not long after they arrive. His powers also seem to extend towards being able to tell who created each fountain, leading him to realise that Kris may well be in allegiance with the Knight.

In chapter 4, Ralsei is placed on the back foot as he tries to keep one step ahead of his friends, as he does not wish for them to discover the tragedy at the end of the Prophecy. However, he is forced to divulge to them that he somehow possesses this knowledge that he perhaps should not have, and that he was keeping this from everyone so that they would not worry about him and they could have fun until the very end of their time together. By the end of the chapter, his worldview is in tatters as Susie discovers the Final Tragedy, but she vehemently rejects it. Kris has the option to comfort Ralsei at his lowest moment, and tell him that he doesn’t have to smile and take everything upon his own shoulders alone.

Chapter 5 results in the creation of Flowery, a darkner with similar powers to Ralsei who was cherished by Asgore since he was in college. Through him, we realise that Ralsei has deliberately been holding back the full extent of his powers out of a seemingly-misguided notion of “fair play”, which Flowery seems to scoff at. We also see that, though impressive indeed, Flowery’s powers do have a limit to them, as he falls when confronting the Roaring Knight. Ralsei also seems genuinely terrified of the notion of allowing himself to use his powers to their fullest effect, but through Flowery’s example and goading, it remains to be seen whether Ralsei will adopt a looser approach to the use of his powers, and what consequences might follow on from that decision.

This is the same chapter we come across Pink, which is the strongest evidence we have that darkners cannot persist in a fragmented or discordant state indefinitely, and thus provides us with the insight that Ralsei may well be a similar case, in that he is apart from his light world object in the Shelter and must return to it at periodic intervals to persist.

Now, as to how this theory might interact with future chapters? I couldn’t 100% say, except that should we be able to visit the shelter, there’s a good chance that we may be able to encounter the horned headband ourselves, and perhaps at that point the full truth will become apparent to both Ralsei and Kris. As for what may arise from that truth? That will be the topic of another essay.

Closing thoughts: If a happy ending does exist somehow… it’s with you

Ultimately, the question of “what” Ralsei’s light world object is, or even if he has one at all, is still a largely open-ended one. Nothing definitive has been stated and there is no “smoking gun” piece of evidence that decisively sways the topic towards a particular conclusion. In fact, it’s entirely possible that we may never receive a definitive answer to the question and that it will be left to us to decide for ourselves.

With that said, however, I strongly believe that the evidence we have seen in Chapter 5 allows for a very strong case to be made towards Ralsei being the darkner form of Kris’s horned headband. Additionally, chapter 5 provides us with satisfying explanations for how he can travel between worlds while still technically being “bound” to a physical object, as well as better contextualising certain of his odd behaviours and inconsistencies, while also allowing for the strongest possible emotional resonance with Kris, further deepening the parallels between the two characters and binding them closer together than ever before. I believe that connection, above all else, to be an extremely significant factor in how Deltarune’s story will conclude, and the way it is portrayed throughout the story we have so far is too significant to be fully dismissed, in my opinion. I hope that, after reading this essay, you may perhaps feel the same way.