#theorycrafting

His fingers are described as "hot and stiff with fever." The presence of infection (indicated by febrile tissue and pus) proves that Sam Wayne's body is alive. Corpses don't get fevers to fight infections–this is reserved for the living. Corpses also don't breathe, and we know that his breathing grows more rapid when he's...flustered.

What we know:

Wayne's body is not dead (yet)

how long it will continue to be so is up for debate

it's in really bad shape, yes

it appears to progressively get worse over the course of the week

Visual evidence:

If you compare the in-game sprites, the degradation of the body is confirmed.

Monday:

No Veil, glowing eyes. Shirt is white and the only clothing to appear bloodstained. The hands appear pale and grey. The shirt is tucked neatly into the pants, which are buckled with a belt. The pants are tucked into the boots. Other than the bloody shirt, the rest of the clothing appears clean–not as dusty as other mine employees.

Tuesday:

Veil acquired. It is mostly white, but there is some discoloration above the right eye. The shirt is becoming slightly untucked. Pants untucked from boots, some tears. The shirt has become darker as the blood stains have travelled down to the hem of the shirt, though there's not particularly noticeable staining on the pants yet.

Wednesday:

Veil is now more stained, but there's still a bit of white/light fabric left. Shirt almost completely stained now, almost completely untucked. The stains have moved down to the upper thighs of the pants. Other staining on lower legs appears to be from killing the ditchling. The pants have other discoloration, as though from dirt. Hands appear darker, the fingers are cyanotic.

Thursday:

Reminder: some of the staining here is caused by paint, but the visceral fluids have continued to spread. Veil has become entirely stained, verging on a light brown color. Shirt has become effectively red-brown with layers of blood and pus. The pants and lower pants are discolored nearly down the knees. The calves are covered in dirt, paint, and ditchling blood. The cyanosis has spread up the hands, which are verging on purple. The jacket, which has been the least effected up until this point, has started to show discoloration–likely paint.

Friday:

As of Friday, there is more staining than not. More orange-y brown. Hand discoloration nearly to the wrist, the tissue appears darker where blood has pooled (along pull of gravity.)

Other notes:

The breathing is also present in the musical tracks associated with "Wayne."

The smell doesn't get commented on until Wednesday, when both the player's internal narrative and other characters start commenting on it. It gets worse as time progresses.

How damaged the face is, is unclear because "Wayne" obscures it whenever possible. But based on in-game art, we can confirm:

The forehead appears damaged.

There's still black curly hair, though the hairline is fairly far back (unsure if normal or due to damage.)

There are no eyebrows and the eyes have become sunken.

glowing golden eyes (due to The Entity)

the face still has a nose

the face still has lips and a jaw

he still has ears

if he gets distracted, the jaw goes slack and he appears to drool blood down his lips/chin

TL;DR The body of Sam Wayne isn't dead.

Okay, so now that that's settled... so what? Why does it matter?

Because it gives us some vital clues to the larger mysteries at play.

What do we know about the week that Wayne disappeared and Pearlanne died?

Not enough and it's driving me mad. So let's look at some clues to try to piece things together.

Timeline:

We know the game takes place during October 2022. Monday is the 24th, as confirmed by Stella's video timestamp in Episode 1. Thus, the final episode will be on Sunday the 30th.

To make it easy to visualize, I've made an annotated calendar.

The above image/annotations are based on the discussions with Isaacs on Tuesday/Wednesday. We can guess that the "week it went down" ranges anywhere from October 9-17th.

Tuesday discussion with Isaacs:

"So you're up in the big house with the boss this week. I just wanted to know if you've seen anything… strange while you've been staying there." The man's voice is quiet and nervous. "Like… a mining jacket? Is there anyone up there with you, a man maybe? Last name 'Wayne?'"

Followed by...

"A friend of mine's been missing for over a week now, and nobody around here seems to give two shits about it, because everyone else is too cowardly to ask any questions about the person who saw him last."

OR:

"Oh, thank god. So maybe there's a chance he's alive…" "He's been missing over a week, and nobody around here seems to give a shit, especially not the person who seen him last. Which happens to be your—"

OR:

"Shit. Look, Sam Wayne is a friend of mine, and he's been missing for over a week now, and I seem to be the only person around here who gives a rat's ass about it."

OR:

"Because I haven't seen Sam Wayne in over a week, and nobody else seems worried about it, least of all the person who probably saw him last, which just so happens to be your—"

OR:

"Sam Wayne's been missing for over a week now, and nobody around here seems to give two shits about it, because everyone else is too cowardly to ask any questions about the person who saw him last."

OR:

"You gotta find out if it was him. Sam Wayne has been missing for over a week and nobody around here seems to give two shits about it."

OR:

"Look, I know I must sound a little nuts. It's just that Sam Wayne has been missing for over a week and I seem to be the only one who gives two shits about it."

OR:

"Maybe it's somebody else… but that still begs the question of where he went. And if anybody has a clue, it's the person who I'm betting saw him last, and that's your—"

OR:

"Because Sam Wayne is a friend of mine, and he's been missing for over a week now, and I seem to be the only person around here who gives two shits about it."

OR:

"Because Sam Wayne went missing over a week ago, and nobody's askin' any questions about it, and I'm willing to bet the last person who saw him alive was your—"

OR:

"Sam Wayne went missing over a week ago and nobody's askin' any questions about it, and I'm willing to bet the last person who saw him alive was your—"

OR:

"I'm sorry to ask such strange questions, but… please, try to understand, Sam Wayne went missing over a week ago and nobody around here seems to give a shit, especially not the person who seen him last. Which happens to be your—"

---

Wednesday discussion with Isaacs:

"Wayne's not missing. I keep running into him.":

"But… why wouldn't he come tell me he's all right?"

"Where is he staying? Why is he hiding from everybody? It just doesn't sound like him."

"'"I'm not sure the man you think is Wayne is really him."

"(Mystical) ''I don't know what he is now, but he doesn't feel human.":

"A day ago I wouldn't have believed you, but I've seen some weird shit since getting off work last night."

"He's all… goopy now. I think there's something wrong with him. Something medical.":

Goopy…? Jesus. I hope he's getting treatment. Maybe that's why he's been distant.

"Did he have a condition of some kind? A medical condition?":

No. He was fit as a fiddle. Built like a brick house, too.

"I don't think he's all right. There's something going on with him. Medically.":

Medically…? Jesus. I hope he's getting treatment. Maybe that's why he's been distant.

"Do you think Tabitha did something to him?":

"Yes. I do. That, or maybe Pearlanne."

"I don't know what it would be, but something happened up at that house."

"The week it went down, everyone was so up-in-arms about Miss Pearlanne's death, almost nobody cared about the fact that some transplant miner had gone missing."

"Did anyone think there might be a connection?":

"What, like… like he had something to do with her death?! No, absolutely not." "Heard it was natural causes. Died in her sleep. She was old, and a smoker." "Figured her lungs finally gave up on her." "If anybody did anything, it was that family doing something to him."

Upon leaving, if player spoke with him about Wayne:

"I appreciate you coming by to talk. I can't say I'm happy with what you've told me, but I'm glad somebody is looking into this." "Seems like everybody else was perfectly happy to sweep it under the rug." "It goes without saying that you'd better not go telling anyone we talked." "And… if you see him, or whoever it is pretending to be him… tell him his buddy is worried about him, all right?"

---

Tabitha's slip up during the Ginseng Baby incident:

Tabitha:

"So, someone accidentally seeing something he shouldn't have seen means he should die then, is that right?" "Forget about the people who loved him. Let the trespasser die. Because, what...? You wanted a grandkid?!" "He didn't mean to stumble into all this! He just wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time because he cared too much about his girlfriend."

Julius:

"...Girlfriend?"

Tabitha:

"I meant pumpkin."

---

What can we glean from clues provided to us?

Whatever has been happening to the body, it's been progressing over the course of approximately 2 weeks:

the inciting incident occurred around the same time Pearlanne died.

Wayne is hinted to have been injured by Pearlanne, the wound may have been a mortal one

Tabitha is hinted to have killed Pearlanne in response

Whatever happened, the end result was that the Entity imprisoned by the Scarlets took Sam Wayne's body as a vessel.

This has kept the body alive, but in rough shape

We know that the body is in bad shape because the Entity is being "Rejected." But what is the cause of this rejection?

Proposals regarding the rejection:

is it due to damage the body received before becoming a vessel? We see the body recover after getting slashed open by Reese, but it's possible that "damage sustained prior to becoming a host" isn't able to be healed.

is it due to matters concerning consent? Even if Sam Wayne consented in the heat of the moment (due to desperation/dying) it's possible that he may have regrets once the consequences were fully realized. (For example you can compare it to Madoka Magica: Mami reaching out to Kyubey in the immediate aftermath of the car accident vs. how she felt later on dealing with the reality of being a magical girl.)

or is due to Wayne not being of the Scarlet bloodline?

It could also be a combination of the above, we just don't have enough information to go off of yet.

What about the body's degradation, aside from Rejection?

Per "word of god": the body cannot handle being exposed to water, because the skin will slough off.  How much of this may have to do with issues regarding showering (and/or drinking tea) and the effects those actions have on the player/residents of Scarlet Hollow is yet to be seen. It might be the case that to body is getting worse because The Entity cannot do basic hygiene due to both physical and mystical limitations.

As of the end of Episode 5, it's pouring rain outside. This could prove troublesome for the Entity's goals to protect the Cousin.

Which leads us to...

The "outfit change"

If the player gets 'Wayne' an "outfit change," The Entity switches to a new vessel: Isaacs. This might solve the issue regarding being exposed to rain in episodes 6-7 (should the rain persist). This can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the player's goals.

If "outfit change":

The Entity doesn't have to worry about water exposure

The Entity can blend in easier with normal humans

The Entity be able to move more freely or accompany the Cousin places it previously couldn't/wouldn't have

We don't know if the original host will survive whatever that process is. It could be enough of a shock to finally kill Wayne's body, or the body might still be recoverable but is an empty shell…if there's even a body left to recover afterwards. Also depending on how strong the strike is, another miner might accompany Isaacs up to the Estate. That leaves a potential for 2 bodies and 2 cars to be left at the Estate …which would be bad for Tabitha, at the very least.

What we can glean from the vessel change?

There are unknown factors that the swap seems to require. After all, if the Entity could swap vessels willy-nilly, why wouldn't it have dropped the very sickly vessel at the earliest opportunity?

Perhaps the swap must occur at the Estate?

Either way, it seems a certain degree of consent being required from the Entity's hosts. Though how informed that consent is, and the ethical implications are still up in the air).

It is likely Isaacs consented to the process–due to his strong desire to see Sam Wayne combined with his blatant disregard for his own wellbeing. Whether or not this will be enough to prevent rejection is yet to be seen.

Sam Wayne and Isaacs are spoken about in the present tense by the Entity, so it is likely that Sam Wayne and Isaacs are in there, but we don't know for how long this may be the case.

We also know that Andrew wrote the "Mommy I'm still in here too" note, but previous Scarlet hosts (Teddy, Andrew, Alexandra) have only been referred to in the past tense. At the same time, some dialogue implies that some parts of their personality/preferences seem to have permanently rubbed off on the Entity

What is the Entity?

Something that was done dirty by a bad deal with Enoch. Something that has been imprisoned by the Scarlets for decades. Something that requires a vessel. Something that has been piloting Sam Wayne around for 2 weeks. Something that wants to be free.

Current fandom hypotheses regarding what the Entity is:

part of the Devourer that was split into pieces.

associated with the Seal called "The Throne."

Something analogous to the folklore of the "Tailypo"–an unknown creature that entered through a hole, was harmed by a human, and wants its Tail back. In some versions of this theory, The Cousin is the "Tail" that the Entity wants to be reunited with.

an otherworldly, Eldritch being akin to an angel (think biblically accurate angels)

a fungus-like parasite

a Dendrogaster-like creature

something similar to a nervous system that can hijack or merge with other creatures' nervous systems

Some combination of the above, perhaps.

...but any additional theorizing on that topic should be saved for another post.

Let's cut to Mancountry/the Forgotten Island, the last remnant of any "wilderness" we see in all of TV World, where the Man says:

I guess I do question if when he says "the whole world looked like this" he means that it was like... A video game??? Or everything was green???? Or just in a general sense that it was more wild???? Or maybe all of the above. Because either way, the whole world used to be Undertale. For some reason.

I think the Forgotten Man and the Shuttah are talking about what the Dark World looked like before the Dreemurrs bought the TV and brought Tenna home. Or, maybe they're describing what the world used to look like before Tenna frequently began to be watched by the family...? One of the two.

But, crucially, I also think this is a representation of Kris having grown up and lost the light and wonder of their childhood. A representation told a little bit through our experience as players, too.

Because Undertale is something the large majority of Deltarune players obviously have a lot of nostalgia for. Once upon a time, when many of us were children, the whole world was a frozen waste, a watery basin, a metal desert; it was a great wilderness, with no infrastructure to force you into society, nothing to force you into contracts or societal obligations or anything of the sort.

But overtime, we had no choice but to grow older and watch as ourselves and the world around us changed. The new things we had to focus on in life, the boring things, the mundane things; all of these things were built over the time we spent loving Undertale without a worry in the world.

Of course, this is a bit of a dramatization, I know none of us... Forgot about Undertale to the point of having to be reminded about it by a Childhood trauma Tree man????? But still You get what i mean hopefully LOL

And again, the same goes for Kris, even though they have no frame of reference for the descriptions of what TV World used to be. We know the Forgotten Man has SOME kind of connection to them personally, as well as their childhood. After all, the Forgotten Man says "the whole world used to look like this," and then says:

So not only can he only speak in Kris's Dark World, he can only speak in the last remnant of the nostalgic wilderness that used to be their Dark World's entire landscape. Yeah that feels pretty supportive of this idea I think LOL

The whole world used to look like this: wild, free, barren of reminders of the things that have gone wrong or all the things that have changed. Maybe it all used to look like the video games little Kris enjoyed... the ones they inadvertently played with Ramb. But either way, it was childhood innocence, plain and simplistic fun.

Hell, not only is the island the last remnant of the wilderness, it's the only place that seems to house the people who never joined Tenna's contract, the Seven Flying Aces. Based on what the Shuttah says about how people who didn't like Tenna's change left, I think the Aces might've been some of those people. Especially since Kris apparently lost them in the couch, maybe them leaving and not joining the contract is the Dark World's representation of that.

Either way... as Kris grew older, as some kinds of strange and terrible things happened to them and their life never improved again, all of the simplistic innocence that used to exist here began to disappear.

In TV world, Society was built over the wild: boring things, contracts, jobs, a world that is organized and trying to be fresh and conform to the present day, and yet is desperately clinging to the way things used to be.

In the real world, what was built on top of the wild was boring, hard for a child to understand, yet life-altering all the same. Maybe it was struggles with money as Kris's father lost his job; divorce proceedings and custody arrangements; their brother leaving for college. Either way, in both worlds, things continued to change until all that was left of what used to be was this single island.

Kris never seems to talk much about their childhood, anyway. Noelle reminisces so much about all the things they did together whenever she's around them, but we have no indication that Kris ever says anything similar, or ever presents memories of their own.

I doubt they like talking about it. They'd probably rather this island not be here at all, with how they have apparently forgot the Man countless times before. But no matter what the deal is, there's at least SOME part of them that still wishes they could go back to these times. If there wasn't, why would the Man appear and speak at all?

And if the Forgotten Man does have some kind of connection to whatever traumatic events they've suffered, as I think is extremely likely, We already know that no matter how hard they try, they "can never wash it all away."

And at the end of it all...

It's unclear how soon he means by "soon" because just prior to this dialogue, the Man says "But one day, this island will disappear, too." The phrasing of "one day" versus "soon" does seem confusing and brings to mind different time frames... But change can come in sudden and unexpected ways, after all.

Either way, the world marches on. Forgotten Island is the last haven for those who didn't join Tenna's contract, the last group of people who refused to join the march of changing times. The last reminder of the times we spent with Undertale when we were young, But try as one might, no one can escape the march of time forever.

But even if this island will disappear one day, that doesn't mean it'll be the end of good times you had like when you were a child.

Kris may not understand this yet... But no matter how much is built around the places you grew up, no matter how much you try to forget everything the reminders of your past, no matter how much things change, no matter how much you've moved away from Undertale:

I'm sure everyone who has played Persona 5 is familiar with Morgana's tendency to call Ann by the title 'Lady'. It's a title that he's very specific in using only for her--not for Makoto, not for Futaba, not even for Haru. It's entirely unique to his interactions with Ann...except, now that I think about it, it isn't. There IS another character who he addresses by the Lady moniker.

A little, blue Lady.

Near the end of the game, Morgana addresses this character--Lavenza--as Lady. She and Ann are the only characters who have this particular honor. For a long time I didn't think much about it but it started to click in my last playthrough of the game. WHY is Lavenza the only other one who Morgana addresses like this? Or...maybe the question is why Ann is the only other one addressed like this.

It's important to remember that Morgana emerged into the world with amnesia with no guidance. He had memories, but they were buried deep beyond his conscious grasp and barely formed. More like blurry pictures than anything he could actually comprehend. A lot of his narrative is built around his concern over his existence, and what his amnesia truly means about his place in life. In the end, it's revealed he was made by the Velvet Room to guide the protagonist while Igor and Lavenza could not properly fill that role. Morgana's origins WERE the Velvet Room, a place that seems very fond of formal titles like 'Master' and 'Lady'.

So yeah, you can probably see where I'm going with this.

Morgana, lacking in the memory needed to define his attachment, latched onto Ann because she was the person who looked the most like a member of the Velvet Room.

Velvet Room attendants in particular are known for being pale, with variants of blonde (sometimes white) hair and bright yellow eyes. The attendants are often, though not always, female. While Ann doesn't have the yellow eyes...she pretty much fits the standard description of a Velvet Room attendant. Several of her design aspects even seem to be mirrored in Lavenza specifically, such as an identical hairline.

When Morgana was created and released into the Metaverse, he had no guideline for what he found compelling about these particular traits. He could only express it as being 'especially beautiful'. Being that he has no reasonable context for any of it, having lost his memory, he can only interpret the intense feelings that he would have towards any given attendant as 'love'. In the context of the actual Velvet Room attendants, it seems to be a feeling of deep reverence, which could potentially be mistaken for feelings of 'love'.

He IS, after all, really young when it all comes down to it. Two or three years at the most. His understanding of 'love' is simply not complex--and in this case, may well be based on subconscious behaviors influenced by his missing memories. As much as he grandstands, he was lonely and scared on his own, and anything that felt familiar was bound to be enticing. Ann was familiar. So he attached to her.

Now this isn't necessarily meant as a get out of jail free card for some of his more embarrassing Nice Guy behavior. I will say, though, that Morgana's amnesia is a major driving point for his character. That his fascination with Ann has the potential to be equally driven by that amnesia would, to me, make a lot of sense.