Gaster’s Motif Throughout The Deltarune OST
Alright, you guys knew this was coming. Here is my musical analysis on Gaster’s motif in the Deltarune OST. (May be subject to change…?)
If you’re in this corner of the fandom, I’m sure you’ve all heard the unused track “mus_st_him.ogg,” also known as Gaster’s Theme. It’s only playable through the game files and the Sound Test Room. It’s played on a creepy piano with a weird filter and is in the magical key of: who the fuck knows
It’s a pretty simple four bar loop. The melody, which everyone I know has taken to calling “the Gaster motif,” is a four note sequence that goes “starting note -> up a minor second (half step) -> up a perfect fifth -> back down a perfect fifth.” This is played four times before modulating down a half step and looping. I’ll go ahead and coin this sequence as “The Gaster Sequence,” and that’s how I’ll be referring to the motif for the rest of this analysis.
What makes this melody so odd is the sheer musical vagueness of it. There’s simply not enough musical information in the track to discern a tonal center, and therefore any attempts to give it a key signature are futile. This gives the sequence a very mysterious and unsettling nature, but its vagueness allows it to be applied to certain tracks in the Deltarune OST very subtly at times.
Now, I’ll go ahead and be real with you; this is a sequence that can occur naturally in major or minor keys. Any short presences of this sequence in a track could merely be coincidence, or maybe not. The question we should be asking is: is this intentional? Again, the vagueness of the Gaster Sequence and its lack of function makes it difficult to discern this.
But enough blabbering! Let’s get into the tracks I think are of note.
We’ll go ahead and start with the reddest of red flags in the OST: ANOTHER HIM. Even the name itself directly references the file name of Gaster’s Theme.
Again, we have a heavily processed-sounding piano, but the added delay effect given to it adds a feeling of vast emptiness. Aside from instrumentation, we see Gaster’s Sequence yet again, with longer rhythms and spacings. It begins on E natural, moves up a half step to F natural, up a perfect fifth to C natural, and back down the sequence. After this is played twice, we see it modulate down, but instead of modulating down a half step as the sequence does in Gaster’s Theme, it instead modulates down a whole step to D natural. Instead of looping after this, however, the sequence continues in different modulations: Down another whole step, then up again to D natural, and finally up a minor third to F natural where it is played twice before finishing the loop.
These modulations emphasize a feeling a feeling of tension and uncertainty. Listening to it for the first time leaves the listener with a feeling of unease as their ear cannot figure out where it will go next, or even when, as some sequences are played twice, and some are played once. The “heartbeat” kick drum played on beats one and two of each measure not only add to the creepiness, but likely also allude to the red soul present on our screen while this track is playing. This track being the first thing heard when booting up Deltarune sets a tone for the game: a darker, grittier world with more mysterious undertones, all likely being heavily linked to Gaster somehow.
The next track plays when you are defeated in battle in the dark world and choose not to continue.
We have, yet again, a melody played on piano with another delay effect (I wonder what Gaster’s favorite instrument is?). The beginning of every four bar phrase is Gaster’s Sequence, which I have elected to put in red. We have a very volatile modulation that occurs after the first phrase, moving from G minor to D# minor. This would be the first time thus far in this post where we have a track with Gaster’s Sequence that has a tonal center! Because of this, we can apply a key for the first time.
This next track I’m kinda iffy about. You know that guy? Rouxls Kaard? And you know how everyone is saying he looks like Gaster? Well, I can tell you I don’t think his track Rouxls Kaard has Gaster’s Sequence in it. BUT! His shop theme Hip Shop has some (perhaps coincidental) moments where the sequence occurs.
It starts at the 0:02 mark in the track, in the synth bells.
We’re in the key of B minor. Highlighted in red, we have C#, D, A, or the minor second to perfect fifth sequence that we’ve been referencing thus far. It only occurs again in the call and response with the chimes at the 0:20 mark.
Same sequence of notes. Is this evidence enough to prove that Rouxls Kaard is somehow this universe’s Gaster? I would say no, but I wouldn’t 100% rule it out, either. It would be strange to try to draw that connection in Rouxl’s shop theme and not in his main theme, which I am mostly confident does not contain the sequence. And as I said before, this sequence can occur naturally in any key. Anyways, if some more evidence comes out someday that links goofy puzzle master to void man, this tidbit of information will be here.
The next track had me suspicious when I first listened to it. Ya see… No matter how many times I listen to it, I can’t not think Gaster’s Theme… Even though it’s completely different! April 2012, everyone; the party room track found in one of the rooms in the castle.
Gaster’s Sequence isn’t here. There are lots of perfect fifths and minor sixths, however. And why should an interval of a minor sixth matter? Because it’s the interval between the first note of Gaster’s Sequence and the top note of Gaster’s Sequence.
The presence of a minor sixth alone would not be enough to make conclusive evidence, but… The harmony of this track interests me.
The harmony is simply a rapidly arpeggiated square wave. The chord it is arpeggiating is a major seventh chord that descends by half steps every other measure. This is, what I suppose, leads my ear to hear Gaster’s Theme. As you might have remembered from before, Gaster’s Theme plays the sequence and modulates down a half step, just as April 2012 does. The only other track in both of the games (UT + DR) that I can think of at the moment that does exactly this is Mysterious Room from Undertale.
Anyways, I’ll close this one out by saying that Gaster’s Sequence does not exist in this track, though the likeness of Gaster’s Theme is ever-so-present in this track, and… Toby might have written it in 2012 like the title implies, when Toby began writing the Deltarune script.
Who was it that Jevil met that altered his views of the world so drastically? Was it Gaster? The presence of the Gaster Sequence in The Circus and The World Revolving could suggest this.
It’s there, played once again on a piano (A PIANO!!!!) at 0:14 in The Circus. It’s brief but noticeable.
G, Ab, Eb, once again forming the Gaster Sequence. This same melody is then applied to The World Revolving in the key of B major. Ready for it? There’s A LOT.
Starting in the lead at 0:20
Then finally in the trumpet at 1:06
I feel like I’ve said enough about this track.
I left my favorite for last. I’m excited for this one, I really am.
Don’t Forget. I feel like that phrase is so, so important to the future events of Deltarune. We found it in Sans’ lab, in Toby’s tweets, and in the credits track of the Deltarune OST. You can imagine my sheer excitement when I heard that beautiful piano (AGAIN, A FREAKING PIANO) play that glorious ascension of notes at the end of a very, very beautiful track.
At the 0:39 mark of Don’t Forget
It’s played not once, but THREE TIMES. And that, my friends,
cannot be a fucking coincidence.
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