There is this melancholy that hums when you play Deltarune, and I think this is felt by Kris in his psyche. One of the consistent motifs that envelops them is the obligation to not “forget.” I’ll walk it back a little first. In Chapter 5, I went and found the egg room, and it is made clear that this will be the last one. Kris feels that he should pursue this space no longer. This is the final action in this questline, as if this imaginative, recursive reality should no longer be grasped at, practiced. Practiced here is an important verb because I’m pretty sure that Kris is creating these rooms in a way.
I think this is cued to the player because the final barrier holder to this room is Toby Fox’s avatar within this and his last work, that little Shiba Inu dog thing. The egg room, a place where they draw, play; where it is clinical and diminutive. A symbolic figure of their psyche in the dark, punctuated by a growth with red fruit/leaves, the tree sprite. I think here Kris makes the final definitive concession to themself that they must stop “playing,” i.e. the psychic practice of playing, pursuing the dark and imagining and inviting others to indulge a game.
I think it is important that here the “growth,” or Kris’s construct of maturity, has its brightest value manifested as a red color. The same color we, as players, take when entering the Deltarune. The same one where we take his agency. It is telling that only on the “pacifist,” or safe route, where it can be assumed from Kris’s position that we, the SOUL heart thingy, aren’t an intentionally malevolent force, all five egg rooms are accessible. In a scenario where the “future,” or “one ending” partitioned by Toby Fox, is “safe,” Kris can acknowledge the INTENTION, the intentionally creative nature of the Dark Worlds, as if it is imagination or play.
And the comment from him and the “forgotten man” that it should no longer be pursued while also not be forgotten should reveal the memo Toby Fox may be trying to convey with this game. That the “Dark World,” or “playing” in the childlike sense, at some point will be abandoned or “sealed” by Kris, while the feeling and takeaway will not be “forgotten.”
I think that’s why the constant guide to this plane of reality in the game is Ralsei. A psychically similar form to Kris’s older brother, Asriel. Amongst other complexes made and rested in each chapter, only alive within the bounds of their stimulant reality, i.e. the actual physical reality that inspired it, Starwalker (a complex form or manifestation of an “inside joke”) and Ralsei can traverse amongst the Dark Worlds in every chapter.
It is pretty sure that the one end is Kris, on his own, without the help of the SOUL, becoming whole and comfortable enough to exit the “depths” and the “fun” of creating a world with your friends, safe and inconsequential. Coming out into the world and practicing the playful talent you had on the world around you.
I think that is why it is important, and not just a carryover from Undertale, that everything has an interactable and productive piece of dialogue in the Light World. In a HUB world in most video games, it is barebones. I don’t know if we remember that, but hub worlds used to be boring. But in Deltarune, the hub world has real consequences and continuity beyond a stat change. And more than that, a companion, Susie, to enjoy it with you.
I think the ending is finding that that isn’t some sort of conciliatory thing, but a real magical thing you get to meet adulthood in. It’s why the story starts in their adolescence, the final time where the imaginary and playground setting is acceptable. While the day beyond it is an undefined and frightening body of primordial water (Lake lol)
This is not about One Piece but its fine. Its also kindve a drunk rant.
