Alright everybody this is my biggest and probably most important entry yet, that I'm, as per usual, writing in a fuge state after having an epiphany commenting under a tweet lmao.
So let's cut to the chase: Toby Fox has declared multiple times that DELTARUNE will only have ONE (1) ending. He's usually said so as a "one ending...? hmmmmmm I wonder how that could beee hmmm insert think emoji here" BUT in the Chapter 1 release Q&A he said this, seeming pretty convinced in fact:
But this goes against everything the game has been setting up right? It's not really a rugpull plot twist if the twist is that there was no twist. Disappointment isn't really a good plot twist.
Some have taken this to mean Toby may have changed his mind, and while that could even fit with what I'm about to propose, I believe this is all part of the game's meta-narrative. Let me explain:
1- DELTARUNE'S METANARRATIVE GOES WAY BACK
Toby has been dabbling with the theme of choice in videogames ever since the Earthbound Halloween Hack, and Undertale was a pretty cleat antithesis to that, the game where choices MATTER.
There you go: best ending, worst ending, and 80 billion neutral endings depending on what rock you flipped over. Sounds awesome right? Except it's just pre-programmed endings again...
There's no part of a game's universe that the code didn't create. That's what DELTARUNE is about. That's what the Prophecy is. It's the in-universe representation of the code, the story's script, similar to how we think of Gaster as the maker of DELTARUNE, which would mean he created the Prophecy, and is trying to break it... (This would also also mean Gaster-Angel is a viable theory based on an obscure Alvin line and the prophecy in windings in deltarune.com back in the day but LETS NOT WORRY ABOUT THAT)
Does that sound familiar? One man's quest to create a universe where the player CAN have a choice, CAN break free from the premade, predetermined path, CAN MAKE A NEW FUTURE.
Gaster's quest to create a new future with us is the culmination of Toby's commentary on player choice, and what better way to achieve a new future than to give us a game with just one ending, no matter what you do, and challenge us to find a new one, if not out of hope and determination (haha), out of mere spite for being told what we can and cannot do.
That is why he's stated time and time again there is only one ending, and why he's starting to doubt so in the latest Steam page updates (e.g. "...only one ending...?") when he was so convinced there was only one ending at the start. He's recieving the results from the SURVEY_PROGRAM he sent out, and he's seeing how apparently some users may have found a way to stray from the pre-made script; mess with the prophecy; achieve a new ending that was never intended.
2- HEY, MAYBE THINGS TOOK A WEIRD ROUTE RIGHT NOW
So, that new ending huh? You want to break a game to do stuff it never intended? You'd need some kind of sidekick for that...
Someone nerdy and who is fond of glitching and breaking games...
Someone who is prone to finding videogame secrets, almost like a gravitational pull...
Please enter: NOELLE HOLIDAY
Famous Third Trucie in chapter 2, she joins us after ending up alone due to Susie taking our choice away... much to Ralsei's surprise... almost like he didn't expect for that to happen... even knowing the whole prophecy, down to the piano puzzle solutions...
Was this even supposed to happen?
Susie is famously an opposing force to the prophecy, even unintentionaly, she can take choices from us like it's nothing.
Before Susie takes Ralsei upward, it looked like she was gonna go right. The Noelle way. The path with the ferris wheel teaser. The path with the dating shoes. Almost like it was meant to pair them up. Love finding its way to the girl...
Either way, we have Noelle in our party. Simply a new party member; act, defend, fight, do some magic... oh. Ice Shock freezes enemies... a state "that doesnt appear ANYWHERE else in the game"...
...
We get stronger by freezing ALL enemies while doing some hyper specific steps, almost like going "EVERY single possible direction".
Skip to the Berdly fight. New spell. SNOWGRAVE. Let's make her cast it then.
What does she mean she "doesn't know" it? She clearly does. It's right there in the menu? How would she have known Sleepmist and Ice Shock but not this one?
In fact, look at her face sprites. She looks really upset, and in the end she gets really mad about it, it's almost like she might have an inkling of what it is in the back of her mind...
Almost like we are forcing something she's forgetting on PURPOUSE...
It's like she's holding back REPRESSED MEMORIES...
it's like shes in some king of..... 1. Flashback(Excerpt) 00:32
Noelle "not knowing" Snowgrave is because it's a memory she wants to forget, something she wasn't SUPPOSED to know, that, through her being naturally a game breaker, found its way up and broke the games intentions. But a memory of what?
...
DESS' FATE IS SNOWGRAVE'S FAULT
I CANNOT SAY HOW, OR WHY, MAYBE SOME BUNKER DARK WOULD BS? MAYBE NOELLE SAW DESS CAST IT BEFORE SOMETHING BAD HAPPENED? (The dialogue also makes it sound to me like Kris also knows what it is? thats completely debateable though). The Knight is clearly a very ice-elemental-y being. Undyne is encased in ice acording to the light world shadow crystal text in the ch3 files, pretty similar to Burghley over here... Not impossible that she could've cast Snowgrave in the past...
Also, it's always stood out to me how in ch4 Noelle says "Thats not the ThornRing, is it?". Like proper-naming-scheme, no-spaces-so-the-name-fits "ThornRing". Am I reading too much into it or is that weird??
I'd like to touch on Spamton too, since basically all Snowgrave talk forgets he is a quintisential component of the route, selling us his [[conmemorative ring]]. Unfortunately this whole analysis isnt that much better at that. Him and Noelle seem to be pretty linked, as the Noelle "ARG" is part of the Spamton Sweepstakes, and apparently she interacted with him in the past while reading all the spam mail in case she got any Dess info. Spamton's shop also feels "nostalgic" to Noelle... Honestly no clue what that could be about.
I cannot expand on this, and I've derailed the analysis enough, so let's get back on track:
Ralsei's "something even worse" dialogue at the end of the ch4 weird route all but confirms THAT is the different ending, the one brought about by the game-breaker-elemental entity.
In conclusion:
Toby "Deltarune Maker" Fox is a character Toby "I roleplay as Gaster on Twitter when new chapters come out" Fox is playing. He's sent out a survey program to try and see if players can reach a new ending. Chapter 1 has no weird route, so he was convinced there was no other ending. Upon chapter 2's release, the survey results have shown the story has deviated for some players, that there MAY be another ending, he's starting to doubt if "only one ending" was completely correct.
Noelle with the power of trauma and her game breaking aura has been sucessful in deviating from the script, and seems like taking advantage of her is the only way to change the events that play out, unintended by the script.
The biggest support of this theory to me is that Toby has never adressed the weird route directly, at least not in his Toby "Deltarune Maker" Fox persona (he did make the Spamton Sweepstakes 2.0), meaning he probably did not "plan" for it, and is hoping that, by ignoring it, as the gamemaker, the game won't figure out a way to get the story back on track.
Finding a new future, breaking the prophrcy, it's a fight he cannot fight, as him making the game deviate from the prophecy would just be revising the prophecy itself, only changing the direction the game is headed, but never truly giving us free choice.
Exa-diagetically though, in the real world, Toby "Roleplays as Gaster" Fox DID program the weird route, which in itself could lead to even deeper comentary about scripted games like deltarune already is, but I don't really know if hes even gonna touch on that (although this guy made Undertale's metanarrative so anything is posible).
3- EXTRA: ABOUT THE SHADOW CRYSTALS AND GERSON
This is shorter than the las points (thank god its like 2am and i have a headache) but I wanted to talk about the Shadow Crystals and what they're leading to:
Basically, I believe they're just anti-prophecy-bait. They're meant to make you think the secret bosses are the way to break the prophecy, as their fights don't appear there, and aren't mandatory.
Friend/ShadowMantle Holder taunts us by asking if we're doing all the secret boss routes for mere enjoyment, morbid curiosity, which shares themes with Snowgrave and Undertale Genocide. Are you doing this because you are having fun with it? or because you just wanna see what happens THAT much? - (which is a very good subversion of defying the prophecy btw, having the change lead to something worse, so the instinct to oppose the Prophecy because it told you what to do makes you fall into a worse fate). Ultimately I think the ShadowCrystals are a faint hope to unlock a new ending, but will only award us with a morsel of extra cool gameplay, like the secret bosses have up to now.
I do want to say that Gerson, a very anti-prophecy being, wrote Lord of the Hammer, based on the prophecy but reinterpreting it including some INTERESTING details: a SECRET BOSS and a SWORD/WEIRD ROUTE MENTION.
SECRET BOSS - For chapter 4 he mentions how a great smith(himself) gives the heroes a terrible weapon (JusticeAxe - which btw would mean Susie IS part of Gerson's view on the prophecy and IS a hero, but the fact this evidence is part of Gerson's interpretetion would fuel the "Susie not part of the ACTUAL prophecy" fire more, although Ralsei knows Kris and Susie's names so they most likely ARE honestly im just gonna stop).
WEIRD/SWORD ROUTE - For chapter 3 he says the heroes "catch a glimpse of a lost land". I believe this refers to the game boards being modified versions of the Weird Route tutorial, which you can catch a glimpse of even if you don't do the S-Rank rooms by heading to the GLACEIR in board 2, thus catching the glimpse of the "Lost Land"(Weird route).
Weird how the most comonly thought about deviations from the prophecy were already there on Gerson's interpretation huh? Very, very interesting...
If you hadn't noticed I have no idea what to make of it lol.
ANYWAY that's it for this 'Double Triple Bossy Deluxe on a raft, 4x4, animal style, extra shingles, with a shimmy and a squeeze, light axle grease, make it cry, burn it and let it swim' entry I need to pass out I've been havivng Gaster visions for the last hour from seeing things line up I gotta get sleep.
Thanks for reading!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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