a red marie

if he DOESN'T dust, though, you'd think he leaves a body, right? so… when he dies in the judgement hall… where is the body? why isn't he lying on the ground?

could he have teleported away silently? yes. we know he can do that, he does it when pranking us in snowdin ("are you following me?") and in his penultimate attack during the fight. but, we don't actually SEE him teleport away at the end of the battle any more than we SEE him turn to dust at the end. so, neither one of those outcomes can actually be confirmed outright. it SOUNDS like he turns to dust, and the lack of a visible body SUGGESTS that he does, but the bleeding raises questions (at least, assuming it isn't ketchup, and operating within the undertale universe where we KNOW that blood = physicality = no dusting).

we don't know the answers to these questions.

some of us assume that, if he indeed bleeds real blood, sans MUST be entirely physical like a human and leave a solid corpse. but… blood being a physical body-associated thing… is, itself, an undertale rule. does that even apply in deltarune? does sans or susie bleeding mean anything at all about whether or not they turn to dust? are those two things even remotely connected in deltarune? or can monsters simultaneously bleed and turn to dust within deltarune's world?

we don't know. you might have a very strong opinion or suspicion based on what you've seen, but… i've checked the gerson dust scene recently. we don't know with confidence. not yet.

also, monsters in deltarune seemingly can't use magic in the light world. so… in his genocide fight… why can sans use magic? if he really is a deltarune character who entirely obeys deltarune rules, that requires that the underground counts as a ‘dark world’ to him. but that would require him to lose his magic when he leaves the underground ‘dark world’ and travels to the surface ‘light world’. does that happen? or does he retain his magic? does the entire earth in undertale count as a ‘dark world’ by deltarune rules?

we don't know.

…for that matter… if deltarune's monsters are indeed entirely nonmagical in the light world just like humans, as some say, then why do they have magic in dark worlds while humans don't? why do specifically monsters get all the lightner magic, if they and humans are equally hopeless magic-wise in the light world? it's not like humans having magic is somehow an alien concept in fantasy/dream settings. why do specifically monsters get magic, like darkners do, but humans don't have any at all??

is it just an undertale reference thing? is it meant to put kris in the monster dysphoria torment nexus? or does it have some lore significance we don't know about yet? is it somehow proof of monsters still having some form of latent magical potential that humans lack? that monsters are inherently ‘more magical’ somehow, even if they don't literally have magic in the light world?

does THAT count as evidence of them turning to dust? assuming for a moment that they do turn to dust in deltarune, is dust even necessarily a magic-associated thing within the deltarune world, or could there be an entirely different reason for monsters spontaneously turning to dust after they die within DR's world?

how is this affected by gerson's 10th anniversary comment that humans "gave up their magic" in undertale's world in order to create the barrier? was that meant to also hint at something in the world of deltarune somehow? did deltarune's humans once have magic too, and give it up for some reason we don't know yet?

did they give up their magic to seal away the dark worlds? if so, when inside the dark worlds, why don't they regain their magic? why does it take the power of DT to open a dark fountain, and why do all lightners have DT in deltarune's world, rather than it being uniquely human? is this even the same DT as we hear about in undertale? could dt be extracted? could it be injected into darkners to create darkner amalgamates?? or is this DT entirely different? why don't darkners have it? do humans have a special power that monsters don't? is it sealing the fountains? why would that be a uniquely human thing while magic is a uniquely monster thing? where do darkners and flowers come into this?

say it with me, folks: WE DON'T KNOW.

…or… i don't, at least. maybe i'm just stupid and some of these things actually do, in fact, have clear canonical answers. feel free to egg me in the comments with the quotes or whatev. anyway, even if i'm wrong about a couple of these questions being unanswered, i hope you still get my broader point:

you might have a pet theory about any or all of these things. but. we don't KNOW yet. in the case of undertale's rules as far as dark worlds go, unless toby finishes UT Hard Mode after Deltarune is completed like some people suspect he will, it's entirely possible that NONE of those UT-related questions will ever be answered at all.

maybe, blood aside, deltarune monsters will be fundamentally the same as undertale monsters. maybe they'll be fundamentally the same as undertale humans. maybe they'll be something weird and wonderful that behaves in a completely novel way unlike either the humans or monsters we knew in undertale. maybe they're, by undertale rules, a Secret Third Thing.

i mean, hell — for all we know, maybe deltarune's HUMANS turn to dust when they die. i'm not saying it's likely, but… i don't… remember anyone saying it CAN'T be technically possible.

maybe the rules for human and monster death are perfectly mirrored. i doubt it, but wouldn't that just be the most hilarious way to piss off every theorist at once?

anyway.

my point is — there is ambiguity here. and where there's ambiguity, there's freedom to interpret things in various ways. so. can yall please stop killing each other over stupid shit like whether monsters turn to dust or not?

gerson's dust, susie's blood, deltarune is different, sure. if you think it's all just a red herring or something, or if you think that deltarune is supposed to be (barring dark worlds) an entirely normal and nonmagical world where monsters function exactly like humans, or if you think that gerson is irrefutable proof of monsters still turning to dust, or if you're wondering why the hell this all matters so much in the first place, or WHATEVER your pet theory is-- thats frankly none of my business.

i don't mind what you think about all this. just don't make it everyone else's problem. because a lot of people have been, and i get frustrated every time i see it.

there's nothin' wrong with bein' wrong. it's deltarune lore. you're not gonna kill anyone. we've been wrong about every single other chapter before this, it's not gonna kill us if our predictions for chapter 6 + 7 are also wrong. if you have a theory that turns out to be wrong, you wouldn't want everyone else to rub it in your face, would you? because you didn't know yet, and you were just guessing.

i'm just guessing, too. i reckon a lot of my guesses will be wrong. i'm okay with that. that's how it is with theories, theyre wrong sometimes. but you don't gotta rub it in my face, or anyone else's face, if it does turn out to be wrong.

and i, for one, think that even when it comes to stuff that's already been established… maybe we don't need to get so heated about disagreeing with each other on what happened in chapter 4. maybe we could ALL stand to rewatch the susie scene where she finds the glass case with the hammer in it, and read the dialogue carefully. and maybe it wouldn't hurt to be more respectful in asking others to do that. maybe it'll make people more inclined to listen to you if you ask them a bit more nicely. just a thought.

i rewatched that scene myself recently. misremembered a lot of stuff myself, i'm not afraid to admit. there should be no shame in that. shit happens, people forget. not everyone has the time to rewatch the same scene over and over until they've memorized every detail.

if gerson's dust turns out to be a tricky tony moment, meant to evoke undertale only to be faked out later… then, uhh, isn't the entire point of a subversion to try and trick the audience? isn't that literally the entire point??? so, if some people are tricked by it, isn't that… kinda fair????

and if it is 100% literally dust like in undertale, and instead it's the bleeding thing that turns out to be not what it looks like based on undertale rules… then, again, isn't it fair for that to trip some people up???? because a lot of people are inevitably gonna come into this game with expectations based on undertale, and i HIGHLY doubt that toby playing around with the rules like this is 100% accidental. like, he knows what he's doing. he knew what he was doing with sans in undertale, and he knows what he's doing now.

i don't really care if you think sans was bleeding blood or ketchup. what i do care about is whether or not you can be mature about people having opinions on the internet, or even just being factually wrong.

theyre trying. it's not like theyre doing it on purpose. take a chill pill, check your sources first, and be polite when you correct them. cmon.

game's not done yet. questions aren't answered yet. people make mistakes and misread stuff from time to time. shit happens.