Haven't The Foggiest

The way Deltarune's Dark Worlds function as living reflections generated by your mind when it's subjected to darkness so dark it becomes anti-light reminds me a lot of SCP-3930: The Pattern Screamer, and I think comparing the two provides some interesting insights:

SCP-3930 is described as a small gap in reality located in the Russian countryside, within which literally nothing exists. Since your brain can't comprehend non-existence, it uses the same pattern-recognition tricks it uses to see faces where none exist to fill in this gap with what it THINKS should be there, meaning when you look at the gap all you see is regular Russian wilderness that appears no different from the area surrounding it. The Dark Worlds work in a similar way, being created by your mind's misinterpretation of a mundane space when perceiving it through anti-light.

Like with the Dark Worlds' darkners, SCP-3930's mental projection effect can even create imaginary consciousnesses, since if you watch someone step into the gap, your mind adds them to its projection of what should be there even though in reality that person has ceased to exist. This results in a fascinating "exploration" log for the SCP, in which the "explorer" sent in to the gap gradually realizes they don't actually exist any more, and are just a projection of the researchers' minds speaking over a live radio. When this radio's frequency momentarily gets interrupted by another broadcast, the pattern is broken and takes the explorer's voice with it, leaving the researchers to realize they'd been talking to empty static the whole time. The Darkners (and Lightners in a meta sense) work the same way. They're imaginary entities that are brought to life within the minds of higher beings. Turn the lights back on or stop playing the game, and those imaginary projections return to our minds.

I think perhaps the point of Deltarune's story is going to be that just because these worlds are imaginary doesn't mean they aren't in some way "real," so-long as you're willing to continue creating them within your head. After all: the thing we call reality is already a controlled hallucination authored by our brains, and as far as your perception is concerned, the only difference between real people and a game's NPCs is the depth of interaction you can have with one compared to the other. Hell, I bet many of you are kinder to NPCs in games than you are to strangers online.

This idea of "realness" is further explored in Undertale's Genocide Route and Deltarune's Weird Route from another direction. The Genocide Route uses its mindless grinding to make the player gradually turn their brain off and stop seeing its characters as "real" until they're no different than the game's soulless antagonist. The process intentionally ruins the game within one's mind by permanently breaking its sense of "realness," while also serving as a good simulation of how people become desensitized to their own actions in real life. Deltarune's The Weird Route meanwhile goes in the opposite direction: instead of game-ifying the player's actions until their weight is lost, it has them commit acts of manipulation and abuse which feel so real that it becomes deeply uncomfortable, even though the victims of their actions don't actually exist. Sure, most people will still DO it, but the feelings of reluctance and guilt suggest that on some level we ARE perceiving our actions as amoral, which would only make sense if on some level we considered this imaginary world to be real.

Since 2018, I've personally theorized that the Papyrus of Deltarune is a very different person from the Papyrus of Undertale.

There was always this weird dichotomy with Paps, where he could be simultaneously very sophisticated and very child-like. I thought that perhaps he was the one who built the dimension-hopping machine we find in their house as a way to escape the Roaring, but the jump between worlds took his memories, leaving him as the innocent fool we meet. Think about it: between the lazy joke-cracking Sans and the obsessive workaholic Papyrus, who would actually be more likely to build something like that?

This would explain why Sans can't fix the machine and return home: he doesn't know how. It would also explain why Papyrus is so obsessed with staying vigilant and "capturing a human" in Undertale: in Deltarune it's said they very recently moved to Hometown, probably because the timekine-monitoring devices Sans refers to in Undertale detected that's where we were going to arrive. Papyrus can't remember why it's so important to him that he waits for this human to arrive, (and possibly to capture it) only that it is.

I was contemplating how tragic it is that the flowers are non-sapient beings granted fleeting sapience, cursed to be acutely aware of their own transience as they gradually wither in the dark, when I realized that's literally just the universal human experience! We're ALL temporary minds forced to contend with a finite existence, gradually withering away from the moment we're created! Just like the Flowers, all we can really do is decide for what purpose we intend to live, and enjoy this dream while it lasts.

I've seen a notable number of people head-canon-ing Flowery as transmasc, and found myself wanting to agree with that interpretation despite it being mechanically impossible (plants don't have gender identities to begin with). I think the reason why is because while he isn't LITERALLY trans, he's very easy to read as SYMBOLICALLY trans. That is, he represents the idealized post-transition dream in the way he embodies freedom to finally express oneself after being so long trapped in a restrictive state, an unapologetic defiance of unspoken rules, and the valiant fight against a system built on predetermination. This is of-course epitomized with the way he encourages Ralsei specifically to break away from internally-enforced conformity and achieve self-actualization.

One of the most interesting aspects of Deltarune's story to me is the way its unique worldbuilding can force its characters to sometimes counteract narrative convention. Here's a great example:

Basic rules of storytelling would dictate that it will feel incredibly contrived for the protagonist to suddenly find the shelter code they need without any foreshadowing earlier in the chapter, making this moment something one could easily consider a mistake... but here it's a necessity.

Deltarune is a story where the audience (player), protagonist (soul), and secondary antagonist (Kris) are forced to share a single perspective most of the time. This means that information the audience learns is also information that Kris and the soul learn, and since Kris is opposed to the soul's objective (entering the shelter), there are times when the audience CAN'T be allowed to learn something to ensure Kris (or the soul) can't intervene. Before chapter 5, it's primarily Kris using this dynamic to deny information from the soul (especially in the Weird Route) however it's deliberately done so in a way that strengthens the mystery elements of Deltarune's story. Chapter 5 is the only time we've seen another character use the same strategy against Kris.

I need people to appreciate the brilliance of Flowery's character.

Toby deliberately weaponized our trust in Ralsei and our distrust of Undertale's Flowey to make us interpret everything Deltarune's Flowery does in the worst light possible. When we first meet him, we immediately interpret his every bonding activity with Asgore as manipulation, and his every moment of assisting us as a condescending displays of superiority or an act with ulterior motives. You wait and wait for that other shoe to drop, for Flowery to betray Asgore or become overly possessive of him... only for it to become increasingly evident that the twist is that there is no twist! Flowery GENUINELY wants to uplift everyone around him, is simply trying to make Asgore realize he's letting his obsession distract him from what truly matters, and is heroically fighting against a doomsday prophecy using the powers of love and friendship. The true twist-villain of the arc is YOU!

At first I was a little surprised we didn't get more build-up on Asgore's isolation from his family before his moment of realization upon seeing Kris injured, however I just now realized his time with the flowers was intended to parallel the way he isolated himself from his friends/family.

We open with Asgore and his ""best friend"" Flowery enjoying time together, which I believe is intended to mirror his early relationship with Toriel. It's uncomplicated, just two people enjoying one another's company. (Yes, I know Asgore is just playing along here, but we the audience don't know this yet.) Then he's introduced to the various flowers, who I believe represent his friends and family. He watches Yellow's cowboy show and eats Green's food. He's starting to get a little distracted by his responsibilities, but he's still making an effort to be present. This represents the pre-Incident era, when work and duty was starting to bog him down, but he still cared enough to put in the effort and maintain his relationships.

Then everything shifts when he sees Kris in the Dark World and is whisked off to the castle full of notes. This represents his initial encounter with the Dark Worlds and the beginning of his obsession. He stops making time for the flowers and starts focusing more and more on trying to piece everything together. This culminates in him literally pushing Kris away when they reach his castle, and we glimpse a darker, angrier side of Asgore. I think this moment represents the actual unnamed Incident itself: the moment when Asgore lost his job and started to fully isolate himself. The process isn't instantaneous, he still agrees to listen to a few pages of Seth's story and still humours Flowey, but these platitudes don't last long. The flowers (representing family and friends) exhaust themselves trying to make him see their love, but their attempts begin to anger him, as he views their affection as a distraction from his duties.

The thorny subjects of self-destruction and suicide get represented indirectly ALL THE TIME in fiction, so it's something we've all seen explored with metaphors before. It's something I always knew was central to the themes of abstraction, but I'd seen it so many times before that I never bothered analyzing it beyond the surface level. It was only after going back to rewatch the whole show post-finale that I've come to appreciate just how brilliant and multifaceted abstraction is as an extended metaphor. Allow me to break down each layer one-by-one:

Firstly, there's the experience of abstraction, which is intentionally contradictory. When we see Jax nearly abstract in episode 7, he enters a state of serene acceptance, only to be pulled from the brink in a panic with his heart hammering. This reminded me of a poem titled The View From Halfway Down, written for the Bojack Horseman finale. The poem was inspired by accounts of suicide survivors, and details the thoughts of someone leaping to their death. It starts out describing a sensation of release and clarity as the person starts to fall, only for panic and horror to set in as they glimpse that titular "view from halfway down," activating their survival instincts and filling them with panic and regret.

Abstraction derives its horror from its focus on those final moments of flailing against gravity. You become trapped within that view from halfway down; an animalistic state of instinctive distress and regret, forever unable to address or escape the pain that made you jump in the first place. Now, if this was all abstraction was, I'd consider it a solid metaphor about the folly of self-destruction as an escape, and leave it at that. However! Unlike similar metaphors I've encountered before, TADC goes a step further by giving abstraction a tangible aftermath. An abstracted individual doesn't simply vanish, they become a monstrous manifestation of the impact taking one's life has on one's friends, family, and even acquaintances: this inscrutable, destructive entity that hurts to even touch, attacking whoever has the misfortune of stumbling across it. That's an aspect of suicide that's explored much less frequently in media, and adds an extra layer of depth to the abstraction metaphor.

However-however! It gets even deeper, because Gooseworx takes this aftermath metaphor and further expands on methods used to cope with grief and guilt using the two primary methods of "treating" abstraction within the show!

Method 1 is the cellar, which represents avoidance and repression. After the initial awful confrontation in which everyone mostly flees or hides from the monster, they let it get locked away, hold a funeral, and pretend the monster still screaming in the cellar simply doesn't exist. This method deals with the physical pain abstraction causes, but creates absence instead of closure. The monster is never properly addressed, it's just sealed away in a place where nobody can properly confront it.

Method 2 is the pillow fort, representing confrontation and acceptance, given to Jax and (to a lesser extent) Queenie. Instead of fleeing from the monster, those that knew it lead it to a safe space where people can take turns confronting and coming to terms with its presence. Unlike the cellar, the pillow fort is something everyone has to build and maintain together, and getting the monster into it is a difficult job that requires a lot of teamwork and effort. Yet the additional cost of investment is rewarded in the closure it provides. The monster still hurts to touch, but it's no-longer aggressive or dangerous. People can sit with it and enjoy bittersweet moments together, in the same way true closure allows us to once more recount and enjoy our memories of the loved ones we've lost.

However-however-HOWEVER! The metaphor ALSO folds Caine into this extended metaphor by using him to representing societal avoidance of subjects like death, grief, and suicide! He sends each monster to the cellar whether people want him to or not, which everyone has come to accept as just the way things are. The flaw with this is first shown to us in episode 3 when Kinger recounts how in leading Queenie to his pillow fort, he "got to share one last moment together, before she was sent to the cellar." Kinger frames the cellar as an unfortunate necessity or unavoidable consequence, even though we as the audience are being shown for the first time proof that abstractions don't HAVE to be dangerous monsters that you lock away. Kinger was in his pillow fort actively confronting and accepting this living representation of his wife's death, only for it to be torn away by Caine, who offers no support beyond "don't you go abstracting on me, too!"

Indeed, must as Caine censored cursing, he also did his very best to undercut grief whenever he could, such as turning Kaufmo's abstraction into a joke with his "wHy diDn'T aNyBoDy tEll mE????" line. Even the funerals had to be hidden from him, as though they didn't address the aforementioned monsters left in the cellar, their emotional weight was still too much for Caine to really handle. People sharing a somber moment was something he'd register as a problem to avoid and distract from. Part of his redemption is finally learning to let people confront the monsters and the grief they represent, instead of trying to hide them. Hence why he doesn't argue with Pomni when she tells him they've worked something out with Jax's abstraction, and takes his hat off in silent respect during the presentation of Jax's real-life counterpart. He represents society emotionally maturing to recognize the importance of grief.