Intermittent Academia

Whenever a dark fountain is made, you’ve probably noticed these strange monochrome eye particle things appear for a brief moment. They kinda resemble the eyes from the purple cliffs, or the eyes of the titan in chapter 4.

And they appear just before a dark fountain is made in both chapters 2 and 4. Except once.

When Berdly almost made a new fountain After Everyone Else Except Ralsei Agreed It Was Okay, these strange green particles appear instead. It’s impossible to not notice them.

Maybe that’s just what it looks like when trying to make a dark fountain within a dark world? Or when using something in a dark world instead of a light world item?

Nope.

Whatever or whoever the Roaring Knight is, even they have the monochrome particles.

The Knight has them. Susie and Kris both have them.

But Berdly doesn’t.

So what are the green things supposed to be for?

Theory 1 - the purpose of the dark fountain.

The dark fountains we see being created in chapters 2 through 4 were all made for a personal reason, whereas Berdly was only about to create the dark fountains after everyone else said it sounded like a good idea, so he wasn’t concentrating on something he specifically wanted. Go check the scene if you don’t believe me, Berdly didn’t just decide to bring about the roaring apropos of nothing, he was forming his ideas on what he believed everybody else wanted. i.e. what he’s been doing this entire time before and after the events of chapter 2.

Theory 2 - it wasn’t supposed to happen like that.

The dark fountain Berdly was trying to make got cancelled by Ralsei before the blade hit the ground, whereas every other dark fountain actually got made. Kris, Susie, Ralsei and the Knight all form the fountain in the same way, so Berdly was just “doing it wrong”… without anyone actually telling him the right way. Every other dark fountain formation is done in the same manner, so whatever Berdly was doing.. it wasn’t going to make a dark fountain as we know it.

Theory 3 - Berdly is something else.

Putting aside the fact that the colour green sure as some interesting associations, Queen makes an interesting comment about the power of will:

Kris, Susie, and Noelle appear as her visual examples. There’s two familiar faces missing here.

One is the darkner Ralsei, who doesn’t fit her criteria.

And the other is someone she goes out of her way to avoid drawing the attention of while planning to get Noelle to create a dark fountain.

Actually, id like to just ask generally: what do YOU think the point if Berdly in deltarune will be? Will he have a big standout moment, will he somehow be the crux of the story that creates true change? Will he get a big, climactic boss battle or final sacrifice? Or will he just simply always be haunting the narrative

Honestly, I’m of the opinion that he WILL die even on a ‘pacifist’ route, just not by our hand

To explain my thoughts on what the point of the parallels is, I’d like to go back to Spamton’s involvement in ch2.

Outside The Weird Route, which ends in Spamton getting Snowgraved like Berdly after he helped set the whole thing in motion to gain access to NEO, there are two ways Spamton’s story can unfold… which seem to end in the exact same way, before looking closer.

There’s violent pacifist, which has him quote something very similar to Berdly’s line from Smart Race, and yields the PuppetScarf weapon - Ralsei’s second strongest weapon to date, at the cost of a harsh penalty to Magic “for those who abandon healing”. Outside any speculation of if that’s what you’re “supposed to do”, which I really don’t think is the case given something from ch5 I’ll get to later, the fact that using violence is directly tied to a lack of healing is very intentional.

And then there’s the ACTs of kindness, where you free him from the wires leading to him crying out the joys of friendship before falling to the ground like before. This yields the DealMaker, which is not only a pretty great armour I ended up using all the way to ch5, but also provides resistance to Puppet/Cat bullets.

…I think that how you handle SNEO is a microcosm of where the story is going with Berdly.

Going back to Chapter 2, the Queen battle at the end has you win either by freeing Berdly from wires (sound familiar?) or through violence… except if you used violence in any of your earlier Berdly encounters, the end result will be the latter, meaning to be a “true pacifist” you have to not use violence in any of Berdly’s earlier encounters - so win though bumper cars, by playing smart/dumb, and by helping him free from the wires.

If you do this, Berdly will directly thank the Fun Gang for their kindness and mercy before freeing himself from Queen’s control… whereas violence will result in a completely avoidable injury as he has to do it all himself. Something that Susie says is stupid, and even Queen cries out for him to stop.

Even as everything else plays out exactly the same, Berdly’s injury will not go away as a direct result of player’s apathy during the events of Cyber City. As of ch5, he seems to be trying to work out the cause on his own, meaning that if he figures it out… he may come to the realization that no one helped him or even told him why his arm was injured, deliberately leaving him in the dark. An injury that leaves him dependent on others like Noelle carrying his books, unable to work his volunteer job, and feeling like he can’t do much to help at all. And as seen by the near roaring in ch2, which only happened because neither Queen nor Berdly were told about these things, I don’t think Berdly feeling like he needs to repay his actions and help others is going to go well. In fact, I think this may involve in the very senseless self-sacrifice that Undertale acknowledges as “cowardly” through Alphys’s actions in neutral pacifist.

This is what happens when you “abandon healing”.

But going back to those ACTs of kindness and the DealMaker, one way in which the pacifist option is shown to be incredibly useful is through the Pink encounter - a boss who also shares strong parallels to SNEO, and who Berdly also strangely forshadows. After you encounter her, you’re given access to a choice of six different very useful items from the flowers, plus Flowery’s scarf which is still strangely powerful as the BrokenScarf (given it has +12 attack even after it got torn to pieces, making it stronger than the puppet scarf and lacking the penalty to magic).

As noted by others who are way smarter than I am, the Pink encounter is to Kris a more positive outlook on their situation than SNEO, where Body and Soul work in tandem rather than one hijacking the other for their own intentions. The whole point is co-operation, as opposed to one dominating the other to the point of self-harm or injury.

And that right there is I think what happening to Berdly.

The Violent Pacifist is where I think your suggestion would play out, as the less-than-happiest outcome (like how in Undertale, Asgore and Alphys still end up in less than favourable scenarios even on a neutral pacifist ending). He is someone who wants to have a standout moment, who wants to show himself in a grand gesture of heroism… but as demonstrated before, this is not going to end in anything other than hurting himself.

Whereas the ACTs of kindness you use to set him free, the very same things that help you free Spamton, save Tenna and Jackenstein, the things Ralsei thought would make the prophecy change even as it seems to be set in stone, the ways in which you show you care for others…

That kindness and mercy may just be the way to create true change as you say, by having Berdly appreciate the values of co-operation over being the best there is, as he did for the Giga Queen battle.

Part of Berdly’s tragedy is just how LITTLE he understands things… concrete things, sure. He’s not as smart as he thinks he is, he’s not good at puzzles… but I mean in general.

Chapter 5 is proof that Berdly can easily be steered in better ways by communication: Blunt communication, yes, but he can be told in no uncertain terms that he’s Not Acting Cool.

Berdly is obviously neglected, and I don’t want to necessarily say he’s delusional, but… he is a victim of too much fiction.

He wants to be admired, cared about, and remembered. He wants to be a HERO. In the Light World, he thinks Intelligence, IQ, is what makes someone to be admired. That’s how HE thinks he needs to be admired, because in his eyes, the only time he ever was was that Spelling Bee.

But in the dark world, the gloves come off. He can be a KNIGHT, a hero like in all his books and games and movies. He imagines himself in heroic situations in the Light World, but in the Dark World, he can actually ACT on them. This over-heroism couples with what I identify as a lack of self-preservation. In a Violent Pacifist queen fight, he doesn’t NEED to pull the plug off himself. It’s undeniably badass and makes for a great moment, yes… but that’s what Berdly wants. He reveled in the concern he was showed afterwards.

Getting into basically headcanon here, but I don’t think Berdly *really* gives a damn about his life. I think, like many teenage boys like him (this is me, projecting), he has daily fantasies of giving up his life for some grand design that gets him praise and eulogies and statues. He probably could have just waited for the plug to come off on its own, but he pulled it off himself. In Violent Pacifist, as OP said, he hadn’t learned the use of cooperation. He was in self-sacrifice mode, wanting anything more than having to rely on them to save him.

Berdly’s true feelings are that he owes everything to Noelle. When the chips are down, as we know, he will fight to the end for her safety and comfort. This is why I can’t call him completely delusional. He KNOWS when things are truly wrong. He listens to people. But, it gets to a point.

I think that Spamton’s final lines before item-fication, much like everything else about him, parallel Berdly. Or at least, WILL parallel him.

Berdly will realize, as he is dying from some sacrifice on Violent Pacifist, that he went somewhere very, very wrong in life. Maybe he puts down the facade, truly, and just… mourns.

“It seems after all that I couldn’t be more than just a simple bluebird.”

Only on a True Pacifist will he break from this foreshadowing, this mold set by Spamton…

Actually, id like to just ask generally: what do YOU think the point if Berdly in deltarune will be? Will he have a big standout moment, will he somehow be the crux of the story that creates true change? Will he get a big, climactic boss battle or final sacrifice? Or will he just simply always be haunting the narrative

Honestly, I’m of the opinion that he WILL die even on a ‘pacifist’ route, just not by our hand

To explain my thoughts on what the point of the parallels is, I’d like to go back to Spamton’s involvement in ch2.

Outside The Weird Route, which ends in Spamton getting Snowgraved like Berdly after he helped set the whole thing in motion to gain access to NEO, there are two ways Spamton’s story can unfold… which seem to end in the exact same way, before looking closer.

There’s violent pacifist, which has him quote something very similar to Berdly’s line from Smart Race, and yields the PuppetScarf weapon - Ralsei’s second strongest weapon to date, at the cost of a harsh penalty to Magic “for those who abandon healing”. Outside any speculation of if that’s what you’re “supposed to do”, which I really don’t think is the case given something from ch5 I’ll get to later, the fact that using violence is directly tied to a lack of healing is very intentional.

And then there’s the ACTs of kindness, where you free him from the wires leading to him crying out the joys of friendship before falling to the ground like before. This yields the DealMaker, which is not only a pretty great armour I ended up using all the way to ch5, but also provides resistance to Puppet/Cat bullets.

…I think that how you handle SNEO is a microcosm of where the story is going with Berdly.

Going back to Chapter 2, the Queen battle at the end has you win either by freeing Berdly from wires (sound familiar?) or through violence… except if you used violence in any of your earlier Berdly encounters, the end result will be the latter, meaning to be a “true pacifist” you have to not use violence in any of Berdly’s earlier encounters - so win though bumper cars, by playing smart/dumb, and by helping him free from the wires.

If you do this, Berdly will directly thank the Fun Gang for their kindness and mercy before freeing himself from Queen’s control… whereas violence will result in a completely avoidable injury as he has to do it all himself. Something that Susie says is stupid, and even Queen cries out for him to stop.

Even as everything else plays out exactly the same, Berdly’s injury will not go away as a direct result of player’s apathy during the events of Cyber City. As of ch5, he seems to be trying to work out the cause on his own, meaning that if he figures it out… he may come to the realization that no one helped him or even told him why his arm was injured, deliberately leaving him in the dark. An injury that leaves him dependent on others like Noelle carrying his books, unable to work his volunteer job, and feeling like he can’t do much to help at all. And as seen by the near roaring in ch2, which only happened because neither Queen nor Berdly were told about these things, I don’t think Berdly feeling like he needs to repay his actions and help others is going to go well. In fact, I think this may involve in the very senseless self-sacrifice that Undertale acknowledges as “cowardly” through Alphys’s actions in neutral pacifist.

This is what happens when you “abandon healing”.

But going back to those ACTs of kindness and the DealMaker, one way in which the pacifist option is shown to be incredibly useful is through the Pink encounter - a boss who also shares strong parallels to SNEO, and who Berdly also strangely forshadows. After you encounter her, you’re given access to a choice of six different very useful items from the flowers, plus Flowery’s scarf which is still strangely powerful as the BrokenScarf (given it has +12 attack even after it got torn to pieces, making it stronger than the puppet scarf and lacking the penalty to magic).

As noted by others who are way smarter than I am, the Pink encounter is to Kris a more positive outlook on their situation than SNEO, where Body and Soul work in tandem rather than one hijacking the other for their own intentions. The whole point is co-operation, as opposed to one dominating the other to the point of self-harm or injury.

And that right there is I think what happening to Berdly.

The Violent Pacifist is where I think your suggestion would play out, as the less-than-happiest outcome (like how in Undertale, Asgore and Alphys still end up in less than favourable scenarios even on a neutral pacifist ending). He is someone who wants to have a standout moment, who wants to show himself in a grand gesture of heroism… but as demonstrated before, this is not going to end in anything other than hurting himself.

Whereas the ACTs of kindness you use to set him free, the very same things that help you free Spamton, save Tenna and Jackenstein, the things Ralsei thought would make the prophecy change even as it seems to be set in stone, the ways in which you show you care for others…

That kindness and mercy may just be the way to create true change as you say, by having Berdly appreciate the values of co-operation over being the best there is, as he did for the Giga Queen battle.

Berdly, Normal NPC, Blue and Yellow obviously… I felt like there was more but its escaping me

way ahead of you there.

That post was ch4-era so it’s not all encompassing, but I’ve also seen quite a few people point out that Deltarune “couples” tend to be those colours as well - the aforementioned Blue and Yellow, partners Snowy and MK (who seem to be strangely M.I.A. as of late…), the weather duo (plus Rouxls and Starwalker funnily enough), and Alphys and Undyne as with Undertale.

I think the colour scheme may have came about from Earthbound’s Ness and Claus who share these colours in their striped shirts, which also got carried over to Frisk’s concept draft as linked in the above post (if you’ve seen any fan designs for the Patience human wear yellow and blue that’s probably why).

I don’t have any conclusive idea of what the colour scheme is for, but from Spamton’s wall and the general use of these colours as a representation of “skies”,

A helpful little index of all my Deltarune theory & analysis posts specifically involving Berdly thus far, in vague chronological order.

Berdly and the Sky Mantle (aka the observation that started it all)

Some visual similarities between Berdly's dark world sprite, Queen's beta design, Giga Queen, and the bird teacher from the Undertale anniversary livestream.

Berdly and Spamton cutscene parallels

Details regarding the relationship between Kris and Berdly that get completely taken for granted

Semi-joking theory about Queen and Berdly

Berdly's Speedrun Strats

The Bird Teacher connecting the dots, and strange similarities between UTDR and Touhou (this one's wild. seriously.)

Shop 3 and Bluebird of Misfortune (this one's just rambling based on audio first impressions. But seriously what is with this game and melancholy waltzing.)

Chekov's Berdly!

Berdly's importance in a meta sense

Ask 1 - Berdly and Romance

Ask 2 - Colour Theory (my take on an idea based on an analysis I really have to watch)

Ask 3 - Berdly and incel ideology (aka why does everyone have such bad faith takes)

Hypoglycemic Berdly (aka over-analysing a single interaction because I can)

The Happiest Outcome and Berdly/Alphys Parallels

Berdly's absence of presence and Being Important By Omission

Ask 4 - Aromantic Berdly!

An in-depth analysis on Berdly's treatment in the eyes of snowgrave players... in the form of yet another incredibly long winded rant about dark humour and bad faith readings

SCC and the alleged music ban (which may or may not come up again sometime soon)

Deltarune and Joke Choices (most of which involve Berdly)

Berdly reflecting the player base and why misinterpretations say more about the gamer making them

Berdly's life is a tragedy hidden in plain sight seriously why does no one bring this up?

Golden Berdly and the NEO Vessel

Allegedly incomplete character arcs and plot twists in Undertale setting a precedent

Ask 5 - Berdly’s completely normal home life

Ask 6 - The lack of context regarding Berdly and a certain somebody else...

Rambling about fanon misunderstandings of Noelle and Berdly’s relationship (with hopefully some coherent points in the tags)

Instances in which Hometown feels less Deltarune and more Chicken Little

Common misconceptions about Berdly that somehow make their way into serious DeltaTheories and irk me endlessly

Ask 7 - Burning arms, burning eyes

Wonder what that spelling-based encounter was doing in chapter 3's journey to nowhere?

Berdly's self-fulfilling prophecy.. oh no..

Man, those Birds sure are Weird.

Vagueposting about a certain line in chapter 3 that always gets used as a gotcha

Berdly’s descriptions of Susie being more revealing than you'd think

The NEO machine's creator and interesting parallels to characters we already know

Ask 8 - we take Berdly seriously around here

An interesting use of motifs.. specifically the part you don’t pay attention to..

Ask 9 - Berdly's presence or absense in the prophecy

Like a chicken with its head cut off...

A PSA towards anyone writing a Chapter 2 Roaring AU

Ask 10 - Ralsei and Unexpected Kindness towards someone you wouldn't think about

Noelle’s relationships with Berdly and Spamton (and how the fanbase has them completely backwards)

More over Friend Inside Me you ain't the only Toy Story parallel in town.

Lancer Parallels? Lancer Parallels.

Pattern recognition and noticing Berdly connections where you'd least expect them

Berdly being relevant outside the Weird route? Inconceivable.. right?

Bonus: theories that aren't necessarily about Berdly but may involve Berdly significantly!

Birdcage Blue and Yellow (aka why Pink and Yellow isn't the only omnipresent colour scheme)

Snowgrave and Fatality

The Angel, The Titan... and The Weird Birds.

A very serious and meaningful take on equipment effects and monetary gains

Slash HJ theory about the librarbian bird npc

Hometown’s hospital wallpaper

Reaper Bird's importance to Deltarune

"How do you feel about losing your face?"

The power of sine wave birds

Librarby part 2 - Elec/Holy boogaloo?

Crack theory about a normal bird

Reaper bird is so goddamn strange.

Don't worry bout those butterflies I'm sure it's nothing.

There's no shame in an egg...

Now spell: Heaven Says (less the post itself more the details in the tags)

It's time for Egg Delivery

The illusion of power as a means of control

First of all, thanks so much!

Second of all, I have a pre-ch4 post detailing the connections of Neo that ended in me realizing “hey, Berdly is surprisingly involved here!” which led to me making that very hypothesis. Even without this theory being true (since Pink/Maddie, Mettaton and Alphys are definitely important considering their involvement in both Undertale and Deltarune, and they do seem to be likely candidates), I still liked the idea of forming Berdly as a misshapen collage out of various different images, like a super scuffed version of the personality square (I can’t remember the exact name right now, all I know is that there’s a really cool art of Noelle with the actual psychological chart. something about how you are to others versus yourself, which fit with the idea I wanted to convey about conscious versus unconscious identity.)

Third of all, ch5 resulted in me making this very rough supplemental to the original post, for some initial thoughts about the theory following the recent chapter.