The theorizerrrrr

“She’s a bit odd”

Jevil is the boss 'Heartache' (Toriel's battle theme) was first written for,

Spamton NEO is obviously inspired by the Mettaton NEO Genocide 'fight',

Gerson in UT mentions fighting in the monster-human war in his prime,

Mad Mew Mew's first fight was limited as a Switch exclusive,

etc etc etc.

I especially like this because there's one (1) specific, popular UT boss fight concept I've been wanting to see expanded for 10 years, and it starts with I should've killed you when I had the chance.

he asks her what she was willing to do, not what she did, and Ralsei has to reassure her she's "good".

which is kind of supported by how she responds to "hearing" the dialogue choicer. She reacts like she can "hear" it, but gets a bit uneasy and then just does something else, which is pretty much never what the choicer actually suggested.

it's like she's used to not acting on thoughts like "do something crazy". She turned it around into a hypothetical question for Noelle instead.

but despite that she might think that having those thoughts makes her a bad person in some ways.

For context: In that post, I was analyzing the frames of the Roaring Knight's final attack, especially how plantlike they are. It's a very interesting detail, for a couple of big reasons: the "in-between" state of plants, who are neither Lightner nor Darkner, and the seeming connection to the "roots" problem that Deltarune keeps alluding to.

Yesterday, though, I was looking at The Legend of Tenna again - specifically, the Island Board and its Grand Photo tasks. Courtesy of the Deltarune wiki, here are all the items we're asked to photograph:

"THE PLANT OF SPIKES, HIDES IN THE FOREST. IT'S NO ROSE, BUT ITS THORNS HOLD LOVE."

"A GREEN GEYSER, JUST NEXT DOOR. WHO CAN DIG IT UP?"

"A FLOWER TORN IN HALF! I WONDER WHO TOOK IT... THE PHOTO, I MEAN."

"THE RED ANTLION, UNDER THE GROUND. FANGS OF YOUTH, UNEARTHED WITH A PHOTO."

Thanks to Chapter 5, and all its hints about the Dreemurr family history, we can suss out a LOT of symbolism here.

First and most obvious is the flower. On a surface level, it seems to be foreshadowing Flowery's fate in Chapter 5 - literally being cut in half. But if we look at it as a symbol - of something important to Tenna, since this is his game - then it probably represents the Dreemurr household. It is, after all, one of Toriel's wedding flowers - and, like the household, exactly half of it has gone missing.

Next let's look at the red antlion. This is a little bit more obscure, but also not hard to figure out: the "fangs of youth" are Kris's own red horns. This item represents Kris's past self: the naughty, Aqua-like child who wore a red headband everywhere they went. Kris has done a pretty thorough job of burying their past self... but there's still evidence here and there, if you take a close look.

I'm not going to go into the green fountain here - that's some seriously esoteric symbolism, and really deserves its own post. In short, I think it's both an allusion to the time Kris wrecked the plumbing with bath bombs, and a representation of a Christmas tree, like the one in Noelle's basement. But it's also got to do with Dark Fountains and Titans - the latter of which have a few very tree-like qualities.

But for now, let's get onto the cactus.

Cacti are a minor, but important motif for Deltarune. There's the one in Kris's house, which features in The Legend of Tenna, and the one in Noelle's room, which is named after Kris. In The Legend of Tenna's desert board, it appears to represent Dess - someone who "lived upstairs", loves Kris, and has one of the keys you can collect for the three-key door.

But while the Desert Board is centered on the Shelter Code holders, the Island Board is all about the past. Symbols of things that Tenna has lost, and is all but desperate to bring back: Kris's childhood innocence, the Dreemurrs' marriage, annual Christmas gatherings, and... a cactus?

It's pretty obvious this one represents a person. The description implicitly compares it to Kris, and says "its thorns hold love" - suggesting someone who acts hostile and aloof, but still cares deeply. In Hometown, this could apply to several people - notably, Carol and Undyne - but neither of them are very important to Tenna. Outside of the Holiday family, there's exactly one person Tenna still pines for - and that, again, is Dess Holiday.

That's not to say those other people aren't important. These symbols have a way of implying multiple things, and while Carol's represented in the Desert Board as "the rich", Undyne definitely counts as a key-hiding cactus in my book. It's definitely a parallel role, if nothing else.

So how does the Roaring Knight come into it? Here's the details:

First, the Knight acts exactly like that cactus is described - spiky and aggressive, but affectionate under the surface. You can see elements of this in Chapter 4, but the best example is probably in Chapter 3, if you manage to beat them. Forced to act outside the confines of battle, they prove that they could have TPK'd us without blinking - only to fail to do so, and offer Kris a gesture of respect and cameraderie before leaving.

However, before you can see this scene, you have to survive their final attack. And that's the one where they look like this:

Part Knight, part plant, and covered with spikes and thorns. One of the most eye-grabbing details is the flower in front - a menacing thing with jagged petals, backed on both sides by what look like either leaves or thorns. Ones that, if you take a second look, evoke the ones on the Dreemurrs' cactus:

There's another important detail, and that's the hands. It's not the most obvious in this frame, but they're considerably bigger and broader than normal - especially their wide, spiky fingers. It makes them look a bit like jagged, paw-like leaves - one pair in particular, in fact.

This is Omega Flowey, the (not-so-)final boss of Undertale. He's a horrific fusion of plants, metal, and flesh, suspended from the ceiling by two masses of thick, rootlike wires. His "flower" is made up of more wires, curved into the outline of petals, and in front of that that sits two equally horrifying heads. The first is, oddly enough, a television - displaying a grinning, but distorted, humanoid face. And beneath it is a structure made of horrifically misshapen flesh, like someone tried to grow a face on a pair of deer skulls.

But the part I'm really interested in is the arms, the only plant-based elements left on the body. To the left and right of the "flower" are a pair of thorny stems, posed and decorated in a way that implies tasseled pauldrons. Beneath those hang a pair of broad, spiky-fingered limbs - made, unmistakably, from parts of a cactus.

Now, obviously these aren't the same person. Flowey isn't even a thing in Deltarune; instead, the two beings who combined to make him in Undertale exist as their own separate characters. But if we take another look at the Knight - the pauldrons made from thorns or spiky leaves, the sinister flower blooming next to a distorted head, even the rootlike "legs" in lieu of Omega Flowey's "wings" - the parallels, including the cactus motif, are undeniable.

(Though some of the elements, like the TV head and suspending wires, have clearly found new homes. Everyone thank Tenna and Spamton for that.)

I'm sure you've heard the saying: if it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc. And the Roaring Knight? They're looking, waddling and quacking like a cactus - one who "hides in the forest" by blending in with the tree-like Titans.