Deltarune World Egg Theory: Redux
This is the second version of my World Egg theory. If you’re curious, you can read the pre-chapter-5 versions (here) and (here). Also, this post operates under the assumption that Dess is the Knight.
What Are Dark Worlds, Anyways?
I feel like it’s pretty clear by now that a Dark World is a representation of fictional stories - specifically, as we can see in Ch5, video games, although the metaphor stands for all types of stories. However, I’m more interested in what it is that allows those stories to come to life - the Darkness. If Dark Worlds are stories, than Darkness is a story yet unwritten. It’s the potential for ideas, the empty creative space you can fill with your ideas. The Dark Fountain, then, is the core idea that the story is built around. It’s what inspires you to create, it’s that dream you want to make real. The story never comes into your head fully formed - it starts as a single spark, and the Fountain represents that spark.
The further you get from the fountain, the less detailed the dark world becomes. The further you get from the things important to the story, the less fleshed out the world becomes. The places the author created for us to see, that’s the world that you can explore - and the places they didn’t write, that’s the darkness at the edge.
But, the places that the author didn’t create - those places are still “real”. If you read a story, you’re able to fill in the blanks. Just because something isn’t shown to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. If you’re putting on a stageplay, and you refer to a character’s mother, but they never actually show up in the story, you don’t need to hire an actor to play her, right?
A story - a Dark World - is an entire world, even if we can only see small parts of it. This is what the Undertale Anniversary stream was about - I think it was Toby preparing us for the idea that the parts of a world that aren't made by a creator are free game for you to fill in yourself. Whether it's putting Noelle in Snowdin, making personalities for all the Addisons, or drawing rooms for all the flowerlings from Flower Kingdom, you can fill in these ambivalent black spaces with your own ideas - your own Dark Fountains, if you would.
“about the new areas, it’s basically just a ‘what if’. but this ‘what if’ was always there. it never wasn’t there and it will never not be there. every monster has to have friends, they have to have something to eat, somewhere to go hang out. the only limit to all of this is your imagination. my goal with these days wasn’t to show you a new hidden truth you’ll never be able to access. my goal is to remind you that you have always been able to go if you just hold the key of asking what’s over there, what’s under the bridge. maybe you guys feel only my answers to these questions are real or matter, but to me i feel the opposite. this is just one interpretation. the underground is as big as you want it to be and i invite you to come behind the wall with me.”
-Toby Fox on the Undertale 10th anniversary stream
A Dark World is a story, and the Dark Fountain and the surrounding world is everything the creator made for us to see. The darkness outside that, along with the places you can never visit, is the places that you make up on your own, consciously or subconsciously. But, if within Deltarune, a Dark World is a representation of a fictional world you're just shown a sliver of, and expected to fill out the rest on your own, what about a "fictional world" to the ones on the layer above? Isn't the entire world of Deltarune the exact same thing to us?
Is There Any Difference Between The Light World And The Dark World?
In Chapter 5, Ralsei finally brings up the fact that the Dark World is a “video game”. It has “menu options” and “stats” and a “config”. This is why, to him, it’s less real than the real world. It’s blatantly fake.
But. You know what else has “menu options” and “stats” and a “config”?
I think that the Light World, and itself Hometown, is also a Dark World of sorts. A “fictional story.” A video game. In the game, the difference between a Light World and a Dark World is obvious, but from our point of view… there isn't really a difference, is there? They're both small, self-contained worlds designed to follow a story. They're both the same thing to the player: a part of the game that we're playing through.
I think that Hometown itself is a small, constructed reality, much like a Dark World, that also exists within the well of darkness (creative potential). Instead of a Dark Fountain, the base idea that it formed around is the Prophecy - the story of Deltarune, the game. That's why every story these characters experience is somehow related to it, from their religion to the books they read and the games they play. Gaster had an idea - the Prophecy - and he made Deltarune to see that idea through.
On the borders of Hometown, however, the reality created by the story sputters out. Gaster didn’t make those parts. It’s a video game, after all, and what happens when you go out of bounds in one of those? A black abyss. Pure Darkness. You can imagine what’s outside of a video game map all you want, but the truth that you see will never respect that dream.
Back when I originally posited this theory, the only evidence I had for this was a strange coincidence. In Ralsei’s castle, the path leading to his room is blocked off by a pink tape, beyond which the castle halls fade into darkness you cannot proceed through. A warning tape labelling the area where the world fades away. And, in Hometown, the only road out of town… is also blocked, by yellow warning tape. Beyond that tape? Who knows! Many people seemed to think that was where the festival would take place, but I knew it wouldn’t. Because that tape is a game object. It’s the same as those obviously passable “impassable” walls in games, traffic cones you can’t step over or small rocks that somehow bar your path. It’s an invisible wall stopping you from going out of bounds, to the unwritten parts of the story.
The reason that none of the characters have noticed this is because they're simply following their role as "video game characters", and characters aren't able to realise the world they're in is fake. I think that Deltarune follows a "code" of sorts, as a metaphor for a video game's code, and that code is the Prophecy. Much like the code of a game, it establishes the boundaries of the world down to the smallest detail, and although you can chart your own course within its rules, you can never break them. Or… that was what I thought, until this chapter’s alternate route was found.
Well… that puts a lid on that, I guess.
As an aside, does anyone else know about the Breadcrumb Glitch in Mother 1? Here's an explanation of it and how it connects to the alternate route. Really, the important part for this theory is that by doing this, Kris and Noelle have gotten out of bounds. The path where Noelle sees the world as just a script everyone follows. The one where she discovers a way to truly “change”. The path where she realizes that only Kris can break the rules of this world. She decides the way to escape is to walk past the boundary of the world, into the darkness… and the game breaks. They went out of bounds. They broke the story.
The Fake and Real World
So. Hometown is a constructed world. The prophecy is the code that keeps it together, the idea that built it.
Looking at it from this angle recontextualizes a lot of things about the game, but one of the things I think it changes the most is the Roaring. If Darkness is the parts of a story that aren't finished or intended to be seen, places you can fill in with your own imagination, then what does it mean for the Roaring to cover the world in darkness? It means the world is covered in uncertainty, a place without an anchor, whether it's a Fountain or a story. The only time a story is completely dark, when there's no purpose to keep it afloat, is when it has ended. The Roaring is what that ending looks like to the inhabitants of a story made real, and I don't think it's just limited to when there's too many fountains. After all, what does it say whenever you stop playing after dying? That the world was covered in darkness. In Undertale, in the bad ending, when Chara tells you to destroy this world - stop playing the game - and move on to the next, all that's left is the darkness of a "finished" story. I saw someone else say that Darkners can survive in any Dark World as long as they have a "purpose", and I think that's why they all turn to stone when the Roaring happens. Without a story to give them purpose, they can't fit in anywhere.
^ Hey, check out how I wrote this part before Chapter 5!
Well That Puts A Lid On That I Guess.
So, taking the fact that this is real into account… I think that this has some very interesting implications if you look at Dark Worlds and Light Worlds as being the same. Particularly, the ending of Chapter 5. The flowers can’t live in the Light World. Sure, they can survive, but they don’t think anymore. They don’t hope or love or desire anything. Their story concludes, and they are rendered inanimate once more. And yet… Susie still believes that they are real! She cares for them, puts Blue and Yellow back together in one glass, fixes up Flowery. Maybe they were never really thinking in the first place. It was all just a fantasy conjured up by imagination. But, the feelings that they gave Susie meant that to her, they were real. She saw their dreams. And isn’t that what matters?
This, I think, reflects how we view Deltarune as a whole. Once we reach the Roaring, once the game ends, Susie and Kris and Noelle and everyone else won’t be able to think anymore. Maybe they never were able to think in the first place - it’s all just a fantasy we’re tricking ourselves into believing, a story we’re playing along with. After all, it’s just code changing the color values of pixels on a screen. But they’re real to you, right? The feelings that you feel, the laughter and tears, that all shows it has meaning. Thank you for seeing Toby Fox’s dreams.
The One Who Doesn’t Believe
Dess was someone who, more than anything else, wanted to escape this town. She wanted to cross the lake, she wanted to be free, and she wanted to bring Noelle with her. I wonder if someone told her that there was a way to escape? A way to see what lay beyond these pointless boundaries she couldn’t seem to bring herself to cross? Maybe it was a cat, with eyes the same color as those two warning tapes that block the path into darkness, one that can easily travel between the places you can never access? I wonder how she reacted to finding out that there really never was anything to escape to. That every bright memory she had was part of a story written for someone else. That the people she loved were all just puppets in a play. And, that the only way for this story to change, is for it to end first.
I think Dess has completely stopped believing in this world, Light or Dark. Much like Noelle on the alternate route - once the patterns of the world revealed themself to her, once she stopped caring about anyone else, she became able to do anything. Of course Flowery’s fake stats don’t matter to her - she doesn’t see any of it as real at all. To Susie, it’s a life or death encounter, but to Dess, it’s just another fictional character.
Back in Undertale, Sans talks about the true meaning of LV. It doesn’t actually make you a stronger person - all it does is represent your willingness to hurt others. Your lack of care for them - in a way, a lack of belief in the world of the game. You don’t care about making everyone happy anymore - you just want to see everything you can.
I think Dess is going through something very similar to this. Because she’s lost all belief in this world, nothing from it can hurt her anymore. And, I think that that doesn’t just mean the Dark World. I think in the Light World, she’s just as strong - she laughs at Susie when she suggests we could take her in the Light World, after all.
You know who else became stronger and was able to maintain that strength in the layer above their own world?
It’s all equally real - and it’s all equally fake. From the perspective of someone who knows the entire story is just one single thing, why would the light world be any different from the dark? Why would a game within a game within a game hold any less power?
Meanings of an Egg
“If it cannot break out of its shell, the chick will die without being born. We are the chick, the world is our egg. If we don't crack the world's shell, we will die without being born. Smash the world’s shell! For the revolution of the world!”
-The Student Council Motto, Revolutionary Girl Utena
In stories, eggs represent change and growth. Within the shell lies the world you’re used to. It might be comfortable, it might be painful, but it’s always easier to stay in the world you know than to try and change it. But, to become your true self, you need to accept the risk of pain and seizure and smash that shell, believing that what lies outside is better than what you’ve grown accustomed to. I think, in a way, this is what every main Deltarune character is going through, and it’s why the egg is such a recurring motif. Noelle needs to stop just “being Noelle” and figure out what she really wants. Susie needs to accept that change is inevitable and she can’t live in these fantasy adventures forever. Kris needs to stop simply following other’s commands and take their own life in their hands. Ralsei needs to transition. But these characters simply cannot grow, because their fates are predetermined. If they step off that path, everything will break.
But is that really such a bad thing? It’s scary to think that once you reject the rules, you can’t go back. It’s scary that cracking the shell means you’ll never be able to retreat into that amniotic security again. But. You have to. You can’t rely on others to tell you what to do your whole life. You have to find out who you really are, even if who you really are is something that others don’t want you to be. You have to escape the story that someone else has written for you.
But… can a video game character really do that? Can a video game character truly deny their programming? Even when Flowery says that he’s fighting the prophecy, he’s still just parroting lines given to him by the code. Even when Ralsei wears a skirt in the Mew Mew fight, it’s only because a variable was checked that allows him (them? her?) to. It’s a tragic fate! It’s what Jevil, Spamton, and even Dess are all struggling with - that they’ve seen fate, and broken themselves against it. The Shadow Crystals are their shattered dreams of freedom - true freedom, outside of the world of a game. They know it’s impossible.
And yet… there has to be a way to fight back. After all, there are two others who were given Crystals, but weren’t broken by them. Gerson sees the end of the world coming, but it doesn’t scare him. He knows that it’s just an opportunity for a new beginning.
Gerson knows this story has an ending. He’s seen it himself, after all. But, he believes that the dark at the end of the world can be overwritten. He sees that power in Susie, that power of “hope”. But, no matter how strong she is, I don’t think Susie can do it alone. Maybe she can fight against the schemes of the other characters, and find that impossible route that leads to a happy ending for everyone. But, to achieve the eternity she longs for, I think she’ll need our help, because when this story ends, she’ll stop existing, too… unless we remember her.
Then, there’s Pink. She’s already figured out who she wants to be and how she wants to get there - but, it’s impossible, isn’t it? Her body and her mind are in opposition, and the Dark World can’t exist forever. Luckily for her… we were there, to show her another path, to show her somewhere she can go to be herself, for as long as she can. Even after these characters realise who they are and who they want to be, even after they’ve already changed, what’s the point if it all ends right away? Can’t you feel that desire, to keep things going just a little longer?
In a way, Castle Town is the embodiment of this, of our ability to save these characters, isn’t it? That’s why it’s so important, why any Darkner can live there, why it has your name engraved and a big heart shaped door with wings. It’s the place you create for all these characters to live together, even after their story ends. If these Dark Worlds are stories, then Castle Town is a big crossover fic where all your favorites can live together, going on silly adventures and having fun. This is why Darkners that are “Lost” don’t show up here, even if Kris brings back the items that made them - it’s your dark world, and you’ve shown you don’t care about those characters. Why would they come back?
Even Castle Town is part of Deltarune, though, and someday Deltarune will end. But this is how the characters of Deltarune can be truly saved. Not through the story, which will come to an end eventually, but through us, who can continue on after the ending. Gaster brought us here to create a new future. Dess says that our heart is the ark that will light the way through the dark. When you turn off a game, that world ends, but the characters keep existing inside your mind. What does it matter if it’s “canon” or “fanfiction”? It’s all equally fake and equally real, right? It’s all just words on a screen, thoughts shared between friends and communities, a new story that spirals off forever. It’s a world that’s as big as you want it to be. Deltarune’s world is an egg. Soon, it’ll be forced to break out of that shell. Will you catch it, and nurse it, filling it with your own ideas? Will you make your own story, inspired by its bravery? Well, whatever it is, as long as it inspires you to create something… I’m sure they’ll be happy.
