He goes on about proving how he was right and how much the person who made the darkworlds will suffer for causing so much pain (note that Asgore is pretending that serving 'justice' will bring his family back together. Aka it'll fix His Pain)

Nothing about giving the Holidays peace of mind or closure. Nothing about the best friend Asriel lost. He doesn't even really mention that Kris also experienced the same thing as him if not More. No mention of bringing Her home or even giving Her a proper burial.

Likewise, Flowey perceives the world as a game because he's been through it so many times that he always knows what everyone will do and say, he's Groundhog Day'd it to the point of the actual emotional weight losing all meaning and everyone being "sets of numbers" and "lines of dialogue" to him; on a pacifist run he talks about not wanting Chara to leave the underground happy and "win" because then he'll be alone again, not because the literal player would turn off the game

Don't Forget, I'm with you in the dark. I found these absolutely stunning renders made by the animator Ilikeducks, and was inspired to make some custom designs using them. Go give them a follow, they make great stuff.

There are three Asriels and all of them are fake

Why Flowery is the most genuine becase he's the biggest cheater

The question is the answer, but I never said the answer's right. Some questions are the wrong answer to ask.

Much like freedom, choice, and agency are not always the same, original, real, true, and authentic are not always the same also.

 [essay index]

Just What the Hell is a Copy, Anyway?

To have color, means to belong, have purpose, a role to play, place in the world.

Darkners turn to statues when they have no more role to play in this dark world, and statues is exactly how they're termed. 2nd sanctuary's gallery even frames them as works of art. A petrified darkner becomes their own depiction - a facismile. They're no longer themself. The original can become a fake.

In contrast, the flying aces are copies, and start out colorless, but they were colored in with care - given purpose. Fakes can become originals of their own.

Clearly there's something more important than being the original. Gerson tells us as much - he finds the original story distracting, he'd rather rewrite it himself, and have his story rewritten by later generations. There is value in imperfect copies.

Not valuing "copies" is made fun of, such as with Catty and Bratty's mutual hatred, which we know from Undertale is getting in the way of a great friendship:

It's no coincidence Gerson sees Susie, who struggles to spell correctly, as the right person to rewrite the story this time. And that she does - Susie writes both the sheet music and Gerson's letter wrong, and it turns out to be a happy mistake:

And when she finishes the story, you better hope she spells it wrong, cause I got some bad news for you about Susie's motivation! (coming soon™)

Gerson himself is not the original - just a ghost put together from memories, "fake" but no faker than the rest of the dark world.

Memories

...are copies too.

As Shuttah shows us, memories are grey by default. There's a strong link between faded darkners and memories. All the photos we take in Legend of Tenna are monochrome - except for the few special ones, the ones that mean something.

If Gerson is a ghost made of memories, who else is one?

Isn't that exactly what Asriel and Dess are? Gone from the town, but still there in its memory? Like a ghost?

Carol, Noelle, Kris and Asgore are all held captive in the past by Dess's ghost. Rudy and Toriel have moved on, concerned mostly with their loved ones right now, and they're brighter, warmer, likely happier for it.

Whoever the "unused" voice is, they spell it out for us:

CH4 I'm starting to lose track of the time. Has it been days? Hours? If someone told me it's been years, I might believe them... [...] In this place, I don't eat or drink anymore. I can't tell if I'm awake or dreaming. I can't even tell if I'm dead or alive. [...]

CH5 I do have one thing, though. And that's memories. Memories of my life... Maybe that's all I am at this point. A collection of memory... ... Then all I can do is... not forget, right? "Don't forget." I just have to keep telling myself that...

Suspended in some kind void, no sight, no sound, no time, no hunger or thirst, no life. They no longer exist - they're an imprint of themself in their own mind.

Asriel of Krismas Past

Asriel escaped the narrative, found a future out of town. Good for him.

But he haunts Kris nonetheless.

He may not be literally dead, but thematically he went to heaven. His room remains untouched as much as Dess's. Asriel's memory is inescapable in Hometown, beloved and missed by all. It looms over Kris, always better than them. Kris is not comfortable thinking of Asriel. They refuse to look into his room in Queen's mansion, reread his letters, pray for him in church.

Cheating

What does it mean to cheat in Deltarune, a game inside a game?

Cheating, it turns out, means winning when you're not supposed to, doesn't matter fair or not. We're accused of cheating a number of times by various characters. If someone expected you to lose, and yet you won, they'll call you a cheater.

Gambling is letting fate decide for you. Cheating is deciding yourself. This puts it squarely in the same realm as determination.

The flying aces' purpose is cheating at cards. They are counterfeit, not supposed to exist, and yet they do. They're not supposed to have color, and yet they do. There's no place for them, so they live nowhere, same place Kris can go by admitting to be a cheater and using tickets. As an organikk reveals in the 2nd sanctuary, the tickets are fakes too, and we get hints to get them from Pippinses.

Pippinses are also cheaters. They sell illicit things they're not supposed to, try to scam you, give you hints, sign Tenna's contracts with fake names, and finally they steal from Tenna.

Is it any wonder they keep their colors when the studio freezes over?

It is cheating - help from the hacker and Spamton's keygen that give us access to Spamton's boss fight. The entirety of weird route is one huge glitch speedrun. The knockoff controller is used to play Mantle. Pink is faking her way into becoming the eighth flower, who all in turn fake their way into being human. Susie even uses deception to clip Gerson's hair and finally win.

But the king of cheaters, the fake of all fakes, has gotta be

Asriel of Krismas Present

Flowery seems like an exception - a positive nostalgia-driven character - but he's nothing of the kind. It's Asgore and Kris that are haunted. A flower intended to live one day, but preserved by Asgore, who can't let go of his wedding bouquet. Flowery is aware of his fleeting existence and firmly focused on the present, much like Rudy. He just uses Asgore's nostalgia to try and make him happy.

Flowery is made to feel fake.

Fake stats, fake powers, fake items, fake party member with no underlying code. So perfect, the cookie-cutter anime twink, with his suspicious chivalric courtesy, catchy but inhuman way of speaking, we can't help but assume it's a front - just like Undertale Flowey's skin-deep cutesy exterior. He must secretly be a sinister manipulator, and probably sexist too!

He gives away infinite free money. The money's fake, but so is all money. Even gold is only precious because people believe it is.

His powers work. He can do all of it. He seems to know everything, too. His motivation is completely genuine - he just wants to make your dad happy. He's not even sexist, he's right there to support Susie's sapphic efforts and push Ralsei to explore gender. His form may be ripped off from anime, but much like Pink, it's an expression of who he is. Flowery is perfect, because he wants to inspire.

And he wins.

He beats us in the end, and with the same sort of "power of friendship" that only we could wield until now. Even better - he spares us, the way Undertale taught us we should. The winning smile really is his best weapon. And once spared, oh terror - turns out he has moral high ground. He's perfectly right - why would our fountain be more important than his? Are only we allowed to dream?

Flowery is the most genuine character in Deltarune. He broke the first rule of the game - chose who he is in this world, he (figuratively) got out of the survey wearing a vessel of his own making.

Fate is a cop

It turns out, when challenged, fate will enforce itself with brute force. You shall not make choices, OR ELSE.

The cheater could only be beaten by an even bigger cheater.

The Knight beats Flowery's 999-damage attacks with its own glitched attack, slicing tails off the 9's, a bullshit move if I've ever seen one. If Flowery uses exploits in-game, the Knight changes code to all 000000.

We don't know the Knight's real motives yet, but if they are an agent of the roaring/angel/fate, it's no wonder they can cheat the hardest. After all, they're supposed to win - it's not cheating when they do it.

Flowery is powerful because he knows the rules are fake and made up. Every knower character thus far has had some of this power - Jevil, Spamton, Gerson, Seam and Ralsei, all have great power even if they refuse to use it.

What makes Flowery's powers fake, is that he's not supposed to use them. What he's supposed to be like is...

Asriel of Krismas Future

The fakest character in the game, who only keeps their colors through slavish devotion to the angel and prophecy. Has all of Flowery's tricks and secrets, but refuses to ever use them. Ralsei is fair, but not genuine by any means.

Ralsei is just an offbrand Asriel - a ghost, every bit as much as Gerson is. Asriel was a "prince" too, even their personalities seem almost identical.

Kris doesn't like thinking about Asriel. They start off cold to Ralsei, healed a below-average amount by Ralsei tea. And they're willing to remain cold. No wonder every dialogue choice with Ralsei looks like this:

[author]

Which one Kris chooses is up to their will and compassion, ie. you, the soul.

Ralsei is and believes themself a non-person, which is funny, cause at least they're a character in the game, unlike Asriel.

But this is not the real Ralsei. When we first meet them, they don't even look like Asriel.

What did Ralsei look like before they took off the cloak and hat?

The prophecy doesn't even show a goat-like prince - it shows a hooded figure - with fire magic that Ralsei refuses to use. The hood was inevitable, what's underneath can be interpreted.

What did Flowery mean when he put Ralsei in their hat again? Is it just to tease them? Or is it to point out they're still wearing a disguise? Why put them in a closet? Coming out jokes aside, a closet is exactly where we find Ralsei - that's where Castle Town is.

Asgore - and he would know an Asriel when he sees one, he's his dad - notices this right away:

By trying to be an authentic prince, or an authentic Asriel, Ralsei fails to be themself - becomes a knockoff, a ghost.

Ghosts

But there's already ghosts in the light world, and they're not even dead.

Pink describes her body-less existence as having faded colors, and once she splits again, we can indeed see she's mostly though not completely colorless. Almost like a ghost is barely even themself until they find a body - "what defines you is your body".

Pink (Maddie) has already merged with her body when we meet her, but Undertale shows us something different. Maddie starts out incorporeal:

* Us ghosts spend our whole lives looking for a proper vessel. * Slowly, slowly, we grow closer to our new bodies... * Until one day, we too may become corporeal beings. * Beings able to laugh, love, and dance like any other...

In genocide route their rage towards you is so intense, that a funny thing happens:

* Human. * That moment of unbridled emotion. * It allowed me to finally fuse with my body! * I'm fully corporeal now! * My lifelong dream, realized!

Ghosts are immaterial - not really there - just like statues, memories, goners and copies. They only become their real selves once they find a "proper vessel" and fuse with it.

.

..

...wait a hot fuckin' second, what do you mean

Vessel?

Indeed the term vessel is already used in Undertale!

Maddie uses it to mean a ghost's body. This would make Pink's Mew Mew doll a vessel even before it became a darkner. Alphys also speaks of a vessel, and what she means is Flowey:

* We'll need a vessel to wield the monster SOULs when the time comes. * After all, a monster cannot absorb the SOULs of other monsters. * Just as a human cannot absorb a human SOUL... * So then... * What about something that's neither human nor monster?

* I sent the SOULS back to ASGORE, returned the vessel to his garden....

* experiments on the vessel are a failure. * it doesn't seem to be any different from the control cases.

A dummy and an ordinary flower (from our, surface world!) can both be vessels. A vessel is, plainly, anything that can contain a soul. Kris's body is the same kind of thing as the vessel from goner maker, because every human body is.

It's not the goner maker that makes you a goner - it's that you're gone, shouldn't be here. You may be present, but you're not (or no longer) a real person.

* Undyne... you saved me...? * Yo, I thought I was a goner, haha...

* Everyone that had fallen down... * ... has woken up. * They're all walking around and talking like nothing is wrong. * I thought they were goners...?

The real vs the genuine

The right and the wrong question. Deltarune does not care about "realness" - it's a game, it's all fake. Real people become fake - their own statues or memories, when they are gone or lose purpose. Facsimiles can become real when they find a role or place they belong to. Stories can be retold, and in a retelling another person can take up the same mantle.

Is Kris a real human being, or a fake vessel? Is there a difference? Is any human being real? I, for one, feel pretty fake. Is Kris a real Dreemurr? Are adoptive children real? Does it make you an asshole to ask? Is the dark world real? Is the light world real? Is the real world real? You have no other choice than assume it is.

As the man teaches us, true doesn't matter as much as meaningful. Well - real also doesn't matter as much as genuine. You can be a knockoff, a cheater, an illusion, hell you can even be dead - doesn't matter.

And the dark world matters. So, how real is it?

real enough.

alright this has 8ugged me for long enough, i gotta get this off my chest. something to point at. flowery is not right, and i'm tired of people pretending he is.

sure. at first sniff, instinctually, he kinda seems right. he's just a guy who wants his dream to come true, his family's dream to come true, and effectively make his dad happy. and YOU, your little gang, your little clu8, your little squad, come in out of nowhere and demand this 8e put a stop to. 8ut hold on a second, this isn't 8eing put to stop for no reason. the dark fountains aren't 8ad cuz of some moral reason, all darkners will die if there's more fountains. they HAVE to 8e closed. so close yours, flowery tells you. 8ut hold on, that's him asking YOU to give up YOUR dream. what makes his dream 8etter than yours? that's a question posited in the chapter. why is your dream 8etter than his and asgores? really, the dreams of the flowers, to learn, cook, protect, play, uphold justice, and love are not 8etter than yours. and yours are not 8etter than theirs. and neither is that the case for flowery. wanting to make your dad and si8lings dreams come true, to give them a place to 8lossom as you were given, that's 8eautiful man. i'm crying just thinking a8out it. 8ut his dream is flawed.

it is not lesser 8y the qual8ty of its contents, 8ut the real8ty of the situ8tion.

first and foremost, asgore does not want this dream. he wants to go home away from all this. he never wanted any of this. flowery was pushing for something someone didn't want. kris, susie, ralsei, everyone involved WANTS castle town to persist.

8ut who cares a8out that. f8ck asgore he's stupid the rest of the flowers should get to dream still, yeah?

i agree. they should. 8ut there's a secondary factor at play. the physical real8ty of the world.

i know it can 8e easy to say "f8ck the rules, make your own f8!" 8ut f8 is a lot more complex than you might think. you might've conceptualized it as some exterior force imposing something ar8itrarily unto our heroes. 8ut there is a f8 the seven colored flowers can never escape. they need sunlight. they are very, very fragile. and will die without it. the angel didn't do this, the knight didn't do this, kris, susie, ralsei, no one did this. it's just the way things are. flowers need light to live.

if they were to keep their fountain open, and castle town closed, then the whole of the flower kingdom would slowly wither away and die. leaving naught 8ut an empty husk.

flowery is wrong. he does not win the final fight. the fun gang sand8ag against him, refuse to fight unlike the previous 8oss's, praying that may8e he is right. 8ut even when you do your 8est, flowery in the end, is the one to give up.

8ecause he knows. he knows how fake all this is. how fake he is. how wrong he is. perhaps flowery hoped he could keep his own dream. a thought that if kris just didn't seal the fountain he could've had it. even as you lose, you get healing items, you get second chances. this cannot end any other way. if it did, it would 8e terri8le. flowery knows this.

it's tragic. it's tragic these kids, what are effectively kris's si8lings, only got to live for one day. they 8arely even knew who they were. they saw one sunrise and one sunset, and it was the most 8eautiful thing ever.

8ut it had to end. and there is no escaping that inevita8il8ty. it's only a question.

will it end with everyone living. or with everyone dying? light or darkness.

"The air swirls in rosy chaos" -pink 8attle text

Chorus - Corigliano’s Etude Fantasy: Etude No. 1. “For the Left Hand Alone”

Rest - Chopin’s Waltz No. 19 in A Minor, B. 150

Fugue - Chopin’s Nocturne in C-Sharp Minor No. 20

Requiem - Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring

Pulse - Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 3, No. 2

Treble - Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag

Tempo - Beethoven’s Für Elise

Rhythm - Bach’s Minuet in G-Major

Melody - Mozart’s 12 Variations on “Ah vous dirai-je maman”, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”

The thing is that the Knight isn't weak, hell no, it's just that they're petty.

Extremely petty.

I feel like the Knight loves being the big bad scary guy the heroes are trying to defeat. I mean, look at how they were moving. They LIVE to be sassy dude.

But there's a couple of times where they drop that evil playful shtick and go straight to the point.

-When Tenna ignores their orders.

-When Susie thinks they're weak.

-When Susie thinks they're weak Again.

-When Flowery tries to defy them.

There's a common pattern among those cases.

The Knight isn't seen as threatening.

The Knight could've defeated the Fun Gang at any moment during their battle, - hell, they could've killed them - but where's the fun in that? So it lets them struggle, because it wants to making itself seem undefeatable, a looming threat that will haunt them until the end of their journey.

But then they manage to get their health down by like, 30%, and Susie chips their sword. And at that moment, it isn't fun anymore. If they aren't scared, then what's the point?

And what do they do to Kris, who gets an attack boost as soon as their friends are swooned during the fight?

They get them on 1HP and remind them of their place. Remind them that they will never be in control by making them kneel.

In the Dark Sanctuary, the Knight prefers to watch from afar, being an ever-present threat hanging over the heroes' heads.

But when they reach it at the end of the dark world, they go back to toying with them, mocking them for thinking they even have a chance.

(Also they dodge Susie's Rude Buster so they were probably purposefully letting themselves get hit by it in the fight.)

But, yet again, they stop playing pretend because of Susie. Because she implied that they are weak.

So what does the Knight do seeing a 16 year old talk shit about them?

They summon a goddamn Titan.

The Titans are never mentioned in the Prophecy unless it's about the Roaring, so the Knight was fully willing to start the Roaring early because Susie made them mad.

Of course, they could've thought that, in the end, it wouldn't actually kill the Fun Gang, but for all we know, they didn't know that either. But it shows that the Knight doesn't like not being taken seriously.

And finally, there's the most recent one: Flowery.

Flowery already didn't think much of the Knight before they even appeared, but when they come to take Asgore, he immediately rushes to save him.

And I think that the most important part here is that, when Flowery taunts the Knight, they actually speed up, to the point they crash into a wall due to being distracted.

Flowery poses no threat to the Knight, not only is the Knight far more powerful than any character we've seen, but Flowery is constantly said to be very fragile, even by Darkner standards; the Knight had no reason to even attempt to outrun him outside of competitive pettiness.

And when he does catch up to them, the Knight stays kneeling for a moment, not necessarily because the wall genuinely hurt them, but at the sheer shock that the goddamn jarona guy is trying to put up a fight against them.

The same way they ended the fight as soon as Susie got too confident, the Knight barely bothered to play along with Flowery. He isn't scared, he isn't cowering, and that's not what the Knight wants, so it gets rid of him.

My point is that the Knight is powerful, but it doesn't want to be just that. It wants to be threatening, it wants the heroes and anyone that opposes it to be terrified of their mere presence. But when they don't? When they try opposing it? It gets mad, because it takes away the enjoyment they get out of purposefully holding back and toying with them.