Deltarune’s Hidden Graffiti Artist
Here’s a quick thing I noticed that I haven’t seen anyone comment on yet:
[Image transcript: Kris and Noelle looking at a graffiti drawing of a tree. The text box on screen says “(The room between… There is a room between.)” End image transcript]
[Image transcript: Kris and Susie standing across from Bratty in a Hometown alley. On the brick wall is graffiti of Ice-E’s head and graffiti of Everyman, labeled with his name. End image transcript]
Deltarune now has two instances of cryptic graffiti in the game. Obviously the graffiti itself has been noticed by most players, but what I haven’t seen anyone point out yet is that two of these drawings use the exact same color:
Here they are isolated from their backgrounds and placed side-by-side to better illustrate:
To me this implies that these two graffiti pieces were made by the same person. However, one is in the Cyber dark world and the other is in Hometown. Since we have yet to see a confirmed case of a darkner existing in Hometown without reverting into an object, it’s safe to assume that there’s another lightner who’s going into dark worlds besides the Fun Gang.
This raises a lot of questions, like who this person might be or what purpose this graffiti serves.
So far we’ve only been able to read the tree graffiti, which mentions the “room between.”
[Image transcript: Kris and Noelle looking at a graffiti drawing of a tree. The text box on screen says “(The room between… There is a room between.)” End image transcript]
If this text is meant to mimic the artist’s speech then it can be inferred that the artist does not speak with any sort of readily-identifiable quirk like all-caps or a special font.
In Undertale, hand-written messages generally mimic the author’s style of speech:
[Image transcript: Frisk reading a note left by Papyrus. The note, written in all-caps in a papyrus font, reads: “HUMAN!! PLEASE ENJOY THIS SPAGHETTI.” End image transcript]
However, this is not always the case. For example, not all of Sans’ written messages in Undertale follow his speech quirks.
[Image transcript: Frisk reading a note from Sans. The note reads, in all-lowercase sans serif font: “didn’t you just say not to bring it back to my room?” End image transcript]
His note on his sock does mimic his font, writing style, and speech sounds.
[Image transcript: Frisk reading a note, presumably written by Sans, in all lowercase standard font that reads: “the truth is that you got owned, nerd……” End image transcript]
But the note on his treadmill (presumably written by Sans) only mimics his all-lowercase writing style but does not use a sans serif font or his speech sounds when read.
Given that the identity of Deltarune’s artist is likely an intentional mystery, it’s not surprising that the text on the tree drawing doesn’t reveal much beyond standard font and capitalization, which 95% of the characters use.
The main thing we can infer from the tree graffiti is that it refers to the tree in Chapter 2 where you find the egg.
[Image transcript: Kris standing behind a tree. The narration says “Well, there is a man here.” End image transcript]
Was this graffiti a warning from the artist? Were they looking for this room themselves? Or could it have been an open invitation from the person inside? After all, the man behind the tree seems like he might be happy to see you.
[Image transcript: Continued from the image above, Kris is still standing behind the tree and the narration says “He might be happy to see you.” End image transcript]
We have seen evidence that the tree man might exist in Hometown as well. If you interacted with the man in Chapter 1 then “a man” will appear in one of the cars outside of the Librarby.
[Image transcript: Kris is looking inside of a car outside of the library. The narration says “(There is even a man inside this one.)” End image transcript]
This could make the tree man a strong candidate for being the artist, although there are other possibilities.
Besides the tree man, we know that there is the Knight and the “strange someone” giving out Shadow Crystals who’ve interacted with dark worlds. We don’t know if either of these people have directly set foot in a dark world yet or if they merely meddle from the outside. We also don’t know if these are three distinct individuals or if two or more of these roles are being filled by the same character.
Another possibility for the Artist’s identity, potentially overlapping with the above candidates, is Alphys. Not only do we see her standing in this alley in Chapter 1 but the files also refer to this area as “bg_alphysalley”, even in Chapter 2 when Bratty is standing there instead of Alphys:
[Image transcript: A screenshot of UTModTool with the sprite for the Hometown alley background opened. The filename for the background is “bg_alphysalley” End image transcript]
One could also argue that the writing next to each drawing lines up with Alphys having historically bad handwriting, although as far as I know she has no proven history of artistic aptitude.
[Image transcript: Frisk is reading a note from Alphys. The narration says “(It’s hard to read because of the handwriting, but you try your best…)” End image transcript]
(notably, Alphys’ letter in the image above is another example of a written message not using a character’s usual speech sounds when read)
On the other hand, the scribbly graffiti text could simply be a limitation of the pixel art or a way to prevent us from knowing what it says until we read it.
Conveniently, both Alphys and Bratty block our path from being able to walk up and examine the Hometown graffiti text directly. Given that the tree image had a message to read, it’s likely that the Hometown graffiti will also have a message when we get the chance to examine it.
Based on the subjects depicted in each drawing, it could be inferred that Ice-E, Everyman, and the tree man might share some connection or at least be viewed as equally-noteworthy entities/cryptids by the artist.
I could throw out other possibilities of who the artist is, like a runaway Dess, but I would be dipping into pure speculation at that point. We don’t have a lot to go off of here other than that the Artist exists and has almost certainly been to the light and dark worlds before.
I was going to make this discovery part of my next big theory post, but since that’s taking forever I decided to make this a standalone. I wonder if anyone out there can springboard an interesting theory off of this revelation.
