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Like I am sorry Knight Candidate Theorists, but the struggle literally only existed in the Chapter 2 Era, Ch3 merely showing us the Knight's design Genocided 90% of the popular candidates and Carol was the ONLY serious theory that opposed Dess Knight after that.... And then it got hard deconfirmed in ch4 unless we got the Mayor Money Funded Tunnels.

So I am sorry gang, the most intensely debated "Creative Freedom Before It Gets Confirmed" we got is if Dess' official design has her be blonde or not. She simply cannot be who Toby is referring to.

SOO, who is a character so mysterious and so well hidden and mysterious that is a constant well spring of fanworks and interpe- It's Gaster, I am talking about Gaster. I don't even need an example, He is GASTER. The most well fermented Mystery Man in all of UTDR who canonically has the hots for us (who I need so badly).

So... Is Toby saying that We'll get THE Gaster Reveal in Chapter 6? Do we dare even hope for something that majestic..?

... No. That's just a fantasy, isn't it?

It must be someone else then.. But who else? What other character do we have that it is at the moment a massive nexus of fan interpretations, fan designs and theorizing? We do have FRIEND..! (I didn't have a better picture, sorry)

And the Fat Cat has infact been a MASSIVE wellspring of theories and interpretations and even possible desgins buut- That already ended?

Chapter 5 happened and Mew Mew straight up gave us the general gist of WHAT it is, "WHO" it is and WHAT it is doing. So just like Dess Knight, IMAGE_FRIEND has gotten a rather universally agreed upon interpretation compared to previously where you could argue it was a literal Businessman of a cat, a literal demon king thing, a sentient virus or just- A Person in general.

FRIEND is now a very specific thing that everyone agrees in it being that, resulting in a LOT of pre-ch5 FRIEND interpretations having now become the "Time Capsules" that Toby was specifically talking about.

So if not the Knight, if not Gaster and if not FRIEND then who is left? . . .

There is one such character.

A character without a confirmed Name

A character without a confirmed Design

A character without a confirmed Role

A character without a confirmed Backstory

Jane/John "ERAM" Shadow Mantle Holder, is a freaking ENIGMA. Too bizarrely sparse in appearance to be confidently acknowledged as a big player but also just connected in stuff far too important to be dismissed in any capacity.

It is the ONE individual in the ENTIRE story that "subtly" encourages towards the Weird Route, no less that if we take into account questions like "Who gave the ThornRing to Spamton?" may actually be the one making it a reality for us to be able to explore. No less being the only possible candidate for the Voice of the "ThankYou" ARG given various oddities in personality that no other character (whose personality we actually know) could ever fit.

Both of these things instantly place ERAM as a being with LUDICROUS amounts of awareness of the inner secrets of the world in order to not only know about the "Forbidden Path" but to actively be able of making it possible just for Us, whose existence It has made clear to be very much aware of and not even making any efforts to hide it unlike characters like Ralsie or Kris.

Like ALL this? This isn't even theorizing in my eyes, that's straight up the baseline data that can be gathered for It that then gets used for actual theorizing in figuring out its Identity, Motives and general place in the story.

If there is ONE character who has yet to get their "True Reveal", the one that invalidates a thousand theories and a thousand fan works that can exist at this current moment It must be It. There exist no other character on its level that... We can concretely say ACTUALLY exists to begin with.

So, why was ERAM comparatively so niche compared to other characters theory-wise? Heck, even compared to other Secret bosses when it first was revealed?

SO- What happened? Are We illiterate?

Well, not like this, I think what happened kinda was the most natural and realistic follow up to the entire build up of the post-ch2 "Era".

What happened is that FRIEND happened.

We saw this wacky and scary sprite jumpscaring us in ch2 when it first came out, in the already scary and wacky "Digital Roots" Area and... Honestly nothing really happened? IMAGE_FRIEND was still a fresh thing and most still saw it as just a "Spamton-themed jumpscare" given the shared eyes.

Yes, there were the theories of this being "Mike" as well as people realizing that the "Neon Cat Signs" in that specific Save Point were also Pink and Yellow and people GENUIENLY figured out that FRIEND was a cat THAT early (Which is just amazing.), but they were ultimately in the minority for obvious reasons.

But theeeen-

And this is where things became EXCEEDINGLY strange.

Because THIS here is where FRIEND proper was born in the mind of the community, first appearing in the "Chair" Page that if you clicked mutliple times lead to getting what straight up was foreshadowing for FRIEND's on screen appearance in Susie's Room during Ralsei's explanation, in the form of FRIEND's eyes along with a cut sample of its signature laugh.

This is instantly confirming that "It" was a separate being than Spamton. And from there the floodgates of theorizing opened.

Then there was Noelle's blog about Catpetterz, which was the first time we got direct explanation on what "Catpetterz" was beyond just a stereotypical random game, which kinda was the seed to FRIEND's mysterious connection to that game that we have to this day.

No less that the second round of Sweepstakes on the months preceding ch3-4's launch we got even more fuel on this connection by getting even more Catpetterz "lore" in the form of the "Rarecats" page LITERALLY having FRIEND jumpscare appearance in the mini-game.

So let's take note of what we had to work with.

We had a mysterious Cat-Character who was connected to Spamton

It appears literally everywhere as a weird Easter Egg

It's appearances are giving a strong "Creepypasta" seriousness

We have zero clue what any of this meant or what it was FOR.

That forth point may seem like a bad thing, but for The Theorists of The World, this was a GIFT FROM [[HEAVEN]]- aka It is theory bait - That's what FRIEND freaking was for all of these years prior to like a month ago after ch5 came out.

FRIEND was SHEER POTENTIAL of relevance but with NOWHERE for them to go. It was a character whose appearances were just... It appearing, but unlike say Everyman, the Annoying Dog or Starwalker - FRIEND's placement was intentional in evoking an atmosphere that this one was Serious rather than a running Gag.

It had to MEAN something! Why would Toby constantly showcase this goofy cat everywhere if it didn't mean anything...?

Anyways and then in chapter 3's FIRST FREAKING MOMENTS we get a MANDATORY MAIN ROUTE appearance of a full-body design of IMAGE_FRIEND in Ralsei's monologue about Dark Worlds.

It appeared in an explanation! Someone's visualized headspace! Why?! What did that even MEAN?

Do you see what I mean? The FRIEND Hype Train wasn't the result of theorists getting bored and deciding to write fanfiction, there was GENUINELY so much fuel for this bizarre cat... But nowhere for it to go! You simply COULD NOT deny FRIEND's relevancy in the story but at the same time nobody had a clue as to what it even WAS.

And then the SWORD Route happens and it just continues.

Then Chapter 4 happens and it juust continues

And then Gerson's Secret Boss Fight happens and it JUST CONTINUES

And WITH ALL THAT in place..

Do you think you could convince people that FRIEND was just a minion of "ERAM"?

AAALL that hype for effectively the "Elite Goomba Summon" of "ERAM"? Who in comparison, their foreshadowing prior to this chapter literally was a sound effect put over Seam's dialogue?

NOW, make no mistake, this isn't some sort of "FRIEND Apologism", trust me when I say the opposite, I was vehemently against any theories of ERAM just being FRIEND and not actually a character. I was against FRIEND being treated a mastermind type figure as Gaster 2.0 when we literally didn't know anything about it...

And yet, not even I could believe in that FRIEND would "Just" be ERAM's little minion. It all had to be this actual important character, right?

Well apparently not.

FRIEND was infact an "Elite Goomba Summon".

This SHOULD have felt like a grand revelation, right? A massive shocking twist where we all realize we had been misinformed by the game?

But, not really. As I said, the weird thing about FRIEND was that it was fuel for something that... Had nowhere to go. Toby Fox only needed to JUST give us a concretely established place to direct all of this attention and relevance and the entire thing would finally calm down.

FRIEND suddenly became a character with an identity and a role and a personality/motives that could be contradicted and make it impossible to be stuffed into whatever you wanted them to be... So a normal character.

HOW did FRIEND become this?

Like forget about patting ourselves on the back for "calling it before it was revealed", we had YEARS of FRIEND becoming this massive deal in the community, I have like an entire folder of utterly amazing fanworks for the damned cat as proof of that!

And all of this happened because Toby seemingly "fumbled" IMAGE_FRIEND's setup, He created all of this attention and all of this focus on this bizarre cat and gave it its own identity and visual motif and associations with other characters even themes and yet NONE of those ever lead to something that IT did.

FRIEND became a big deal in chapter 2 and it took until 2 weeks AFTER chapter 5 for us to FINALLY figure out what this character actually was setup for? Why do it like this?

Even "supposed" attempts to counterbalance the massive momentum that FRIEND had picked up directly as a result of the Sweepstakes like the Vending Machine dialogue literally calling it a "Servant" seriously failed because it still depicted FRIEND as an intelligent - if not outright graceful entity capable of speech, rather than literally a collective of beasts driven by near primal instincts and orders as Mew Mew presents them.

No less ERAM's mere existence by comparison being the aforementioned bizarre mystery that it is, which just didn't give it enough "stopping power" to absorb FRIEND's momentum into itself

... Which let's finally talk about that!

HOW was ERAM "fumbled"?

If it hasn't become clear by this entire post being more about FRIEND than ERAM at this point.. FRIEND was the most efficient sandbagging attempt of the character. FRIEND was seen as literal secret boss material TWICE, both for ch3 and then again in ch5. It was a black hole of attention to obscure other secrets.

FRIEND was literally being theorized to be what ERAM already was... But FRIEND actually had the "relevance fuel" to backup such claim with faaar greater ease than ERAM.

Which leads us to the second point; What was the issue with ERAM? Sure, FRIEND was a bomb of pure theorizing potential. But ERAM actually had a personality, goals, motives and relationship with characters like Kris, no less that it ACTUALLY talks.

So it should've still been able to carve out its own part of the story with complete ease, it was after all a secret boss, those always get their own complete sto-

WELL ABOUT THAT...!

Not ONLY does ERAM have to contend with the likes of Ramb being "Secret Boss Bait" and "fake shop lore vendor" type figure that is revealed to in-truth not know CRAP.

Not ONLY does ERAM have to deal with IMAGE_FRIEND being a runaway hype-machine that just reached critical mass after its mandatory reveal in the very same Chapter.

BUT ERAM has to share its "Secret Boss" status with the freaking ROARING KNIGHT - THE MAIN ANTAGONIST OF THE STORY.

And the Knight is the direct opposite of the semi-self-contained stories that the Secret Bosses as it is THE overarching antagonist of the ENTIRE story so far and this was its MAJOR Main-Route Reveal after the setup of both King's, Queen's and Tenna's respective hyping It specifically for this moment.

WHAT THE HELL, TOBY?!

This makes ZERO sense to happen accidentally. It is such an amazingly well constructed attempt to smokescreen EVERY aspect of ERAM both before AND after its reveal.

FRIEND was custom made to be hyped up so high from the Sweepstakes that It'd make us tunnel vision and expect FRIEND to be somewhere and the few bits and pieces of it that DID appear were seen as further confirmation of such expectation... Even if they didn't fully make sense.

Ramb also is the one character that we spent the most time with in relation to the whole "Questline" and in the before the final segment of the SWORD ROUTE you would be forgiven to assume that this was HIS story and his questline leading to him being the secret boss, bait or not.

And then when ERAM finally appears and we finally fight them and we finally defeat them and finally get the Shadow Mantle... We can go finally do the Knight's Fight and get that juicy shadow crystal!

Because in context, you will kinda be doing the entirety of the MANTLE Game FOR the Shadow Mantle. ERAM was straight up not even SUPPOSED to be in this story to begin with! The very chapter is not even trying to position them as a individual of interest, it's like a weird stop-gap to go (try and) kick the ass of the actual individual of interest of the chapter.

It stole the Shadow Mantle from Seam as a way to force us to go through its inserted added Sword Route boards to make sure we would see what it had to offer.

And with that realization, we're beginning to reach the conclusion of this entire maddening rant disguised as an analysis post.

ERAM intentionally was attempting to keep itself hidden every step of the way.

Obviously it can't control stuff like the sweepstakes, that'd be crazy... But ERAM can use IMAGE_FRIEND as its eyes and ears to spy on us, leading to all the countless sightings from the cat being a smokescreen for ERAM being whose constantly spying on us every step of our journey without ever revealing its own self.

And ERAM stealing the Mantle was especially designed to lead to the entirety of the SWORD ROUTE where it gets to deliver important information to us in such an indirect manner - even its voice in the game is hiding its actual one. Even the Shadow Mantle Enemy is hiding its true form, it is just the Shadow Mantle itself possessed into a shape that loosely resembles it rather than ERAM itself.

The entire purpose of us fighting our way through all of these dungeons is to specifically allow ERAM to deliver their important message to us in a way that doesn't leave a TRACE of their true identity.

No less, that a rather funny realization of mine that even the Forgotten Man is less of a mystery than ERAM. The Man who literally had his identity erased from the world and can only speak to us once, is still more easily comprehensible in his place in the world, his story and even general identity - because he wants to be found and remembered.

ERAM on the other hand, is someone attempting to remain unknown and even be forgotten about beyond what it provides us in a sense.

I mean it's so freaking well hidden that I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out it was also the goofily mysterious entity literally called "Someone", just literally someone.. It is so hilariously and intentionally vague that it'd fit like a glove...

Such fun, but anyways!

To at Last Conclude This!

TOBY FOX IS LYING!! "I had a different expectation about how certain info would be interpreted or combined." MY BUTT!

HE CREATED the ENTIRETY of the IMAGE_FRIEND Theory Industrial Complex to Sandbag MY GOAT for an ENTIRE YEAR until Chapter 5 came out! HE planned this all out!

HE IS A LYING MUTT! "Personally, I really don’t read or watch theories. That’s because I already know what my game is." LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE!! THIS SICKO is SO in deep into the theorizing game He is throwing the MOST DEVIOUSLY ENGINEERED Theory Sinkholes to cover his EVIL MASTERMIND TRACKS.

HE got that CAT in Castletown to lie for ERAM and make up fake Entry 17 Quotes to make us THINK this was Gaster's Doing!

BUT NOT OUR TOBY! COULDN'T BE PRECIOUS TRICKY TONY FOX!

BUT I AM ONTO YOU! The rest of these lore plebeians may have fallen for your petty tricks BUT I'VE GROWN WISE TO YOUR FOUL SCHEMES! MY SOUL SHINES WITH RADIANCE IN THIS SEA OF ILLUSIONARY DARKNESS YOU'VE GROWN!