Pinned Comment: -Whoops, forgot Lancer also knows the Legend if you refuse to listen to Ralsei. Probably doesn't affect any of my Geoff conclusions, but figured I'd point it out. -Before writing any comments that use Geoff's Twitter take-over as proof of him being "real," keep in mind that Toby has stated that tweets are non-canon. -Geoff ruining the narrative by being "real" is not equivalent to our choices not mattering as a result of the timeloop. The former is bad because it tells us that DELTARUNE's characters don't matter. The latter is fine because it's a tragedy we experience alongside the characters.
I don't think Lancer knows the prophecy at all. He just says that all they gotta know is that he's the bad guy. Likely his dad the Kard King told him this.
haven't finished the video yet and will edit/delete my comment if you address it, but what if the soul is just an avatar that we are connecting to/represents us? Of course, that still conflates fiction with reality, but I feel like that would keep the metanarrative without breaking peoples suspension of belief. Kind of in a similar way that DDLC does it.
can't believe people got mad at calling gaster "mystery man" when the sprite that everybody uses for gaster is LITERALLY CALLED "spr_mysteryman" EDIT: also Geoff is the best name for deltarune gaster hands down
That was precisely the reason people didn't like that. The reasoning was he wanted to avoid calling the voice Gaster, but then proceeded to call him a name that everyone already associates with Gaster anyways. I found that amusing but apparently some others didn't...
I can't believe he just called the voice Geoff, it's like he doesn't even believe in gaster. Also I acnt believe he just called him gaster before, everyone blames gaster for everything
As a counterargument to Toby Fox not involving the actual player, I think that’s exactly what happens at the end of Undertale’s genocide route when you make a compromise with Chara to bring the world back and play the soulless route. They reference YOUR human soul and while I think that loses its effect if used too much, I think at the heart of these games that’s exactly the point. We ARE a part of the story as players and even though we didn’t actually commit murder, the emotions we feel are real and our connection to fiction that we allow ourselves to have creates very real impacts on our lives.
that was exactly my thoughts; i have a really hard time going with the train of thought that the fictional world doesn’t impact our world, bc like you said, that is the precedence that undertale set. not to mention that the soul in both games are more of a vessel for the player, regardless of if it belongs to kris/frisk or not
Yeah but the point is that in-universe, the soul that is being sold to Chara is Frisk's. That conversation is between Frisk and Chara. In the soulless pacifist ending it's not my real body that gets possessed by Chara, it is Frisk's. The player is there as a metaphor, Chara is a metaphor for certain players, Flowey is a metaphor for some other kind of players, but the point is that none of them are IN-UNIVERSE you. It's just a softer kind of meta compared to some other games where some character straight up tells you "hey, I know this is a videogame".
@@godoatthegoat2884 you are saying that like its fact when its just an interpretation. especially since its pick and choose when you decide what benefits that view. such as flowey mentioning the one controlling frisk.
Right? Like it isn't saying he's bringing Deltarune to our real world, it's brining US (a player) into the video game world of Deltarune. That part of the theory bothered me so much 😂 And Gaster didn't steal our soul, he just used us (a PLAYER) as the new controller of Kris. Kris is now US but in the world of Deltarune. Our soul and choices are the only connection to our world and the Deltarune world. We can only impact the Deltarune world and Kris. Our choices matter to that world.
I don't think Geoff is implied to literally summon the player's SOUL, but rather that he summoned or created a SOUL-like method for the player to control in the world. That way, he acknowledges the player, but doesn't transcend beyond the fourth wall anymore than Sans facing the camera while it zooms in Undertale, or Flowey directly talking to us outside of the game.
It’s possible sans facing the camera is him looking at a camera Alphys put down, since he worked together with her, and would know where any camera is.
Exactly, it's not _literally_ our soul, it's just a representation of us in universe that we can control. Kinda like a lesser vessel, supposedly originally meant to be put in the bigger vessel he had us make for him.
I personally believe Faint Courage exists to create a larger tonal dissonance between the normal game over and Gaster's "then the world was covered in darkness". The different and more somber feel of Darkness Falls becomes more unsettling when compared to the hopefulness of Faint Courage.
The soul isn’t the players actual soul, it’s a representation of the player. It’s what the player has control through, but not part of the player themself.
I feel like it's worth mentioning that KEYGEN is likely a reference to real life key generators. In real life, key generating websites that were used to unlock illegal copies of software and games, often used a song called "Unreal superhero 3". If you listen to both, KEYGEN sounds very similar.
I wish he actually looked up Keygen before making that section. He tries to tie it in not realizing that Keygen is actually just a thing for generating product keys.
I don't think the soul in the beginning being the "players" soul is too far fetched to say. Sure, "Geoff" didn't literally take his hand through my computer screen and pull me in, but we made CONTACT with him by installing the game and booting it up. In a meta sense we quite literally make contact with Geoff by installing deltarune itself. Atleast, thats what I think
I don't think "Geoff" could take a player or a human to the vessel creation by force because some of his dialogue suggests that he couldn't like asking "ARE WE CONNECTED" and "EXCELLENT" which implies that he has to check if the red soul is connected which wouldn't make much sense when he could force a human soul to connect with him.
Personally, I much rather believe that Geoff didn't summon us in the first place; we simply appeared, and he simply took that opportunity to speak with us and place us in a vessel.
I don't see why him establishing a connection with us to put the player in a soul of some kind would be far-fetched and immersion-breaking, but the implication (from the tweets from the Undertale account) that Geoff is fully aware of, and capable of navigating, a space beyond the confines of the game (he's been 'looking for us', remember) is not.
I have a feeling that the reason the Game Over screen changed is the same that got the file select menu changed. They are both situations were the interface became less meta and more "gamey", and they could have happened at the same time.
I love how Toby has set such a precedent for everything in his work being deliberate that something as simple as a UI change sends massive ripples throughout potential theories
i love how your theories always, without fail, make me go "jesus christ Jaru what the hell are you talking abou- oh, that actually kinda makes sense. nevermind"
to play devil’s advocate, calling the voice ‘mystery man’ is basically the same as calling him gaster since the sprite everyone assumes to be gaster was named mystery man in the files
I don't think "Geoff" could take a player or a human to the vessel creation by force because some of his dialogue suggests that he couldn't like asking "ARE WE CONNECTED" and "EXCELLENT" which implies that he has to check if the red soul is connected which wouldn't make much sense when he could force a human soul to connect with him.
Regarding AUDIO_INTRONOISE: I think it's noteworthy that this is one of the very few voicelines in Undertale and Deltarune. The most prevalent characters who speak audible words are Flowey, Jevil and Spamton, all of which have gained some kind of forbidden knowledge about their worlds. This could further hint at Gaster/Geoff having meta knowledge about the world of Deltarune. (But then, there is also Mettaton who is able to audibly speak so idk. You could argue that since Mettaton is a machine with an injected soul, he did get knowledge outside the confines of being a machine. He is aware of physically being only a machine, in the same way that Flowey/Jevil/Spamton might be somewhat aware of being only characters in a video game. But I understand that this is a bit of a stretch.)
actually, Mettaton isn't a machine with an injected soul! he is simply a ghost possessing a robotic puppet. this is backed up by the diaries in "Nabstablook's cousin's house" which describe a person abandoning their family to ascend to stardom (at the help of Alphys), as well as Bratty's and Catty's dialogue discussing how after Mettaton was supposedly just made, MTT and Alphys were already acting like old friends. If you keep all this in mind and watch the events at the tail end of Mettaton's own bossfight, the first caller was obviously Nabstablook, Mettaton sure seemed to recognize them, and called out "Bl-" (presumably saying Blooky?) as the caller hung up. as the final nail in the coffin, Mettaton and Mad Mew Mew are described as eating ghost food together in the canon winter alarm clock dialogue. in short, MTT and Alphys go out of their way to make the public think MTT is a robot with a soul, but that's just not true. (if you want to you could use this as fuel for "Alphys lies and is a bad person", otherwise you could use it as fuel for "Alphys respects their friend's wishes and is a good person.) sorry if this came across a a little overbearing or toxic. I know I've been seen that way before, and I genuinely mean this in the best way possible, trying to be as constructive as I can in disproving the spread of misinformation.
@@nathanielkershner5904 You're absolutely right! I somehow forgot about that when making the comment, thanks for pointing that out. I'd argue that claiming a soul was "injected" into a machine is still not completely wrong, as a ghost possessing a machine is just one way to "inject" one's soul into an object (while still being in control of course). But yeah, Mettaton's soul certainly belongs to Nabstablook's cousin and he is the one controlling Mettaton.
I think the soul in the intro scene might be artificial, synthetic in some way. It sounds like a logical extension of Gaster's research into souls, determination, and time-space.
34:31 the whole "ralsei's putting on a performance" thing has always been something i thought about in the back of my head, but the association with the 8-bit NES RPG-like music just makes it so much stronger, i never fully realized that until now great observation dude
This was amazing. Usually I watch Jaru videos in the background over time due to their length, but I watched this one in a single sitting, giving it my full attention. Thank you Jaru, for all of the work you put into youtube.
I'm at the beggining of the video, and while I agree with your points regarding GEOFF not being able to summon your ACTUAL soul, I think the soul is more meant to serve as your metaphorical connection and influence over the game. The reason why a soul is chosen(especially the red, heart), in my theory, is that we, as the "player" are familiar with that imagery from UNDERTALE. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the twitter tweets just before Deltarune's release mention stuff like "you have me waiting" or "I have been looking for you aswell", which would suggest that GEOFF is simply aware of the fact that the majority of people first experiencing this game were most awaiting something linking it to UNDERTALE, hence the way your connection to the world is represented. This is further supported by the fact that Toby Fox himself reccomends playing UNDERTALE before playing DELTARUNE
I'm inclined to view the Twitter stuff as non-canon, as Toby has said such things were non-canon in the past. Plus, there's a big difference between metaphor and plot.
I think people get that gaster quoat wrong He says "You have been searching for me" "I have as well" I believe gaster is saying that he is also searching for himself as he is shattered through time and space
What if (and I have literally no evidence for this), the intro scene with the vessel is us "creating" "ralsei" in the master dark fountain, but it just ends up discarded and actually replaced by the ralsei we know in game? The background looks very much like a dark fountain, and with the "you're about to meet someone very interesting," line for Susie, Kris, and Noelle, I think it'd make sense that we're creating ralsei (or a prototype, before being taken over by someone else). Again, no actual evidence, purely speculation, but I think it would make for an interesting plot twist!
It's important to consider that Kris is interested in magic rituals and Asgore is heavily hinted to have occultist practices/secrets in his house and messing with the dark worlds. Like father, like son.
That would also draw in the idea that Ralsei is who Kris wanted to be. The one who Kris never could be, because "Nobody can choose who they are in this world."
It occurred to me, that Kris probably doesn't like who they are, so maybe this intro sequence is about Kris dreaming about who they want to be. Only to be cut off with brutal real life "No one chooses who they are in this world"
Regarding the soul in the intro being the player’s “soul”: In Toby Fox’s world, it is possible that “souls” are substantially different from souls in our world. Souls are physical objects in the fictional world, for one, and the act of us, the players, manifesting a soul when we open the game may be more “we are now committing to be emotionally invested in this story and that manifests as a “soul” in this world” and less “Toby Fox is claiming ownership of your irl soul”. Especially in Deltarune, with its themes of narrative and layers of fiction, a being from a world lighter than the Light World itself may have the ability to manifest a soul-like object from something less than their literal, actual soul. Not saying you have to believe that’s the “player’s “soul”” (read as: a heart-shaped object manifested from an irl player when they allow themselves to be emotionally invested in a story, also has strong ties to the themes of narrative, fiction, and control) originates from the player; it could very well be an in-game character’s physical soul. Just saying that if it does NOT come from an in-game character, that doesn’t mean Toby expects you to believe that your LITERAL SOUL is up for grabs.
I think there is definitely a way for the soul to be ours without completely breaking immersion. Geoff could’ve created an artificial soul, and have us control it. It’s all done in-universe and accomplishes the same result of it being “our” soul.
Maybe he was using the "questionaire" at the beginning to approximate what our soul was gonna be like in order to create an artificial clone from our soul in the real world in-game as you said 🤔
@@schalomforever It would make sense. For example, he asks us to choose a gift to sus out what we value most, asks us how we feel about the vessel to see how compassionate we are, and "do you acknowledge the possibility of pain and seizure" is pretty self-explanatory.
Noelle not having anything to say to Kris after a Game Over could hints towards the future in the game. If Ralsei and Susie are with Kris in the future, but not Noelle, then it could make sense how she gets no special Game Over Dialogue.
I think the theory of the soul belonging to the player can be taken as metaphorical. Geoff isn't literally taking your soul, you are putting your soul into the game by chosing to take part in it. This would also line up with the soul being a symbol of the player's influence, and the player being in control of ONLY the soul and not Kris. There is the issue that souls in Undertale are seemingly literal, and that separating one's physical soul from their body has happened in Undertale, but this may not be how things work in Deltarune as there are clearly differences in how these worlds work as monsters can now bleed
it literally just means sound test mus_st_him it's also a final fantasy reference, in composition, and in the circumstances somewhat, because the whole soundtest thing feels dreamy.
It'll be hilarious if we get a final battle with the Knight, and he declares himself to be called by several things, which he lists, including Gaster; then he concludes with: But you may call me GEOFF.
The “FRIEND” being related to Geoff parallels him and Flowey even more since they both spy on you and disappear very quickly if you walk to see them doing so. The fact that they share such a specific detail like that is convincing to me.
I honestly think FRIEND is flowey, Flowey is known to shapeshift his face into everything (not just humans and monsters) plus the basement is the only part of chapter 2 where you see foliage (probably vines) and the fact that Photochop Flowey is severely connected to machinery and wiring (probably more foreshadowing on AUDIO_DRONE theory) which could be related to his enviroment in chapter 2 wheres its set in a computer room in the library. and lastly for the fact that hes notorious for syping on the player in UNDERTALE
I always interpreted "GALLERY" to mean Rouge's Gallery. A collection of foes/criminals. This song only plays when the two main chapter antagonists are, **arguably** at their most villanous. It just reminds me of that thing Toby said. About how he imagined Kris and the others running up the stairs past previous chapters bosses up to the knight. Running past their rouge's gallery, you might say
""Geoff"" is my favorite Deltarune character (Seriously tho calling intro guy goeff so no one complains is genius and now I'm going to call him goeff has well)
There certainly could be a possibility that the Image_friend dude could possess spamton. When spamton in his shop said something like "can anyone hear me, help.." his eyes weren't colored in a similar way to the "friend's" eyes.
20:09 the idea of something fictional or created coming to life in a way is present throughout Deltarune. The darkeners for example. When you name your vessel after yourself, Geoff seems to think it makes sense to do so, implying the player truly is meant for embody said vessel rather than overwriting Kris. There’s also the fact that something you designed (Trash Machine), ended up returning later on means there’s a chance for your designed vessel to return.
Ok wait I just had an idea. The connection between Flowey and Geoff has been made. What if Geoff has been following us like Flowey did in specific Undertale spots? The eggs, the one smile thing in the Queen’s basement, manipulation characters like Spamton. Totally could just not happen, but an idea. Also, I haven’t watched the entire video, if Jaru did say that, I’m not the at far yet.
Great video as always! When it comes to my personal interpretation as to why Toby created Faint Courage I think I fall into the “there will be a new game over screen each chapter” category especially given that the chip tune instrumentation and pixel art “Game Over” kinda fit with the whole “cyber” theme of chapter two. He could just be doing it to spice things up, or perhaps it’s meant to symbolize how dying here would result in the Cyber World fountain specifically contributing to the Roaring, which could also apply to future versions of the theme. On another note, I’d like to offer a sort of middle ground option on the subject of what the soul summoned in the intro to the game is. My idea is this: the soul is not literally the players’ but is instead a conduit of sorts that allows us to connect to the world. As to who this soul belongs to, perhaps it simply belongs to the vessel that we create, as they do appear to be human. Of course I’m not entirely sure how this works given that we do seem make the vessel, and, according to Undertale at least, soul power cannot be created artificially. But, perhaps what’s actually happening in the intro is not us creating the vessel, but simply customizing their look and personality. After all the only physical features of theirs that we can change are their hair style, which can be easily changed, and whether their left leg or right leg appear to be bigger which could be contributed to the size of their pant leg instead. This idea suggests that the player is involved, but that the person in the intro does not do anything to us that we know is not actually happening.
I agree with your interpretation on that middle ground a lot. It's clear from both the twitter interactions and the ingame interactions that we are being interfaced with by Gaster, not forcibly pushed into the role. We don't have control over other characters or how certain events will happen, but we do have autonomy over ourselves continuing to play the game. That's where I differ from both hypotheticals. I don't think some non-meta ingame entity is controlling Kris because that would be boring and bash against some worldbuilding that's been established up to this point, nor do I think that the player's soul is directly in the game metaphorically because that's simply ludicrous. We are connecting to Gaster, Kris's soul, and the world of Deltarune of our own accord, and our actions are highlighted as such ingame. We can shut it off at any point, it's not a virus or unstoppable game that takes over our controls. If anything we're doing that to the game. But Gaster wants us to interface, which brings up a lot of unanswerable questions.
I'd agree with you on the whole "Geoff cannot drag real-world players' souls into the game" if it was Geoff actually *doing* the dragging. Geoff does nothing to force us to participate except contacting and persuading us. Geoff reached out. We, the players, are the ones who make the effort of connecting to the world of Deltarune by running the Survey Program. You are an individual, willing conspirator in Geoff's game. By installing Deltarune, you've consented to Geoff's terms. By participating in the fiction of Deltarune, you are, in a way, offering up your SOUL -- fitting for a game that's all ABOUT people's relationships with fiction/dark worlds. Remember what the game says in its installer. "YOU WILL ACCEPT EVERYTHING FROM NOW ON." There isn't a single character that can diegetically read that text, except a being outside the story. In other words, it's meant for the player to see. Not Kris. Not Susie. Not Ralsei. But us.
Amazing video Jaru! You hit the nail right on the head when it comes to break the immersion. Like you said, Toby’s games don’t OUTRIGHT break the fourth wall, rather they take place in universes that function with rules that allows for meta commentary. With this in mind, Here’s my mini proposition of what Gaster “summoning” the player is meant to be. If Flowey is meant to parallel the player, maybe Geoff is meant to parallel the game developer himself, Toby. Instead of bringing the players soul, he instead essentially PROGRAMS a player controller and slaps that bad boy onto Kris’s soul. It’s similar to object oriented programming in game dev. Instead of re-programming movement for every NPC , you instead make a separate component and slap that code onto anything you want to have movement in game. Assuming Gaster didn’t make the ENTERITY of deltarune. (Which I personally don’t agree with) it kinda makes him more like a rom hacker or modder rather than a game dev. Which is a really cool idea when you consider how toby got into game development and his previous attitude towards dataminers when UNDERTALE first came out. Sorry for the info dump, This whole video got me brainstorming, Have a good night ❤
"Before the story" was actually used in the "UNDERTALE - RUINS dynamic theme" for the playstation 4. It's only a background for your menu on PS4, but it could still be relevant to deltarune. Wait... "Before the story." Unused track in undertale.. Before deltarune. Before it's story. Was undertale.
Oh also funfact The only unskippable dialogue IN THE ENTIRE GAME is another him intro sequence dialogue, death screen and that's all. Only Ga- Uh Geoff cannot be skipped. That shows he has power beyond the game, like us.
My interpretation of the opening was that Gast- I mean 'Geoff', created an artificial soul for the player to control, and then he planted the artificial soul controlled by the player into Kris.
12:30 honestly this section just convinced me that whoever the person who deletes your goner character is the actual antagonist and judging the change in text and etc, it isnt "Geoff"
You bringing up Kris's connection to "Courage" got me thinking. What if, like many believe, that red soul doesn't belong to Kris, and the reason they resist it so much is because it isn't even the right color? In Undertale, thanks to the golf mini game, the color orange (often associated with the orange soul) is associated with "Bravery". What if Kris's original soul was orange before it was replaced with this red one? Just a thought.
Regarding the Fallen Child's name: Toby Fox's doodles from development posted on his twitter (dated December 4, 2020 if anyone wants to double check) also refer to them by the name Chara. So it's not entirely fanon thought to be canon. Though yes, the name definitely comes from the term 'character'.
What this? A new jaru jaru video? On my birthday?! What are the odds! And it's a big hour long one about Gaster too. This is the best birthday gift i could have gotten! Thank you!
I think that your interpretation is interesting, although I still think everyone is making some of these concepts too complicated. I think that Geoff summoned us (literally through the original link he posted on Twitter leading to the deltarune chapter 1 site) with the intention of creating a vessel for us to go into deltarune and stop the timeloop, but someone else stopped him and decided that it would be better to do this through Kris. It's possible in previous runs of the timeloop that Kris and Susie never enter a dark world or never become friends, and the roaring happens some other way, this person that might be working with Geoff could see an opportunity for the player to get more out of playing as Kris, as the vessel doesn't look fully human and it may be difficult for it to make friends with a monster and ralsei in order to fulfill the prophecy. I think the reason that Kris looks like they are struggling so much after removing the players soul is because the procedure of putting us inside of Kris was never tested, never supposed to happen even, and thus has changed Kris and their body, making it harder to function. It's possible that the vessel didn't already have a soul to begin with, and the player was meant to act as the only soul inhabiting it, but with Kris there was already an existing soul, think about how if you stretch a plastic bag to hold more than it can handle, when you remove half the stuff from the bag it's still stretched out.
I think that the wallpaper of Kris, Susie and Ralsei near the fountain depicts the "Three heroes apear at worlds' edge and banish the angel's heaven" moment, the ending of DELTARUNE.
Gaster could absolutely "summon" the player to Deltarune. He already did, way back in 2018 when he used our curiosity about what was happening with Toby Fox's Twitter, eager for any hint of Undertale 2. I always interpreted those events as Gaster "luring" the Undertale fanbase into whatever scheme he had planned. Put another way, he didn't literally summon the Player, he tempted them by giving them SURVEY PROGRAM. Once the Player runs the Program, they enter the world of Deltarune of their own volition. There's a sense in which you could call this "summoning", but not in the magical sense of being involuntarily pulled into the story.
Didn't Chara already break the fourth wall in UNDERTALE by attacking the Player themselves, since the window shakes when they attack as if it was the target of their attack and the window seems to function as a conduit between the game and the player?
What if the Vessel was never actually discarded, but was actually the vessel for this "Geoff" entity? And the Dark crystals we collect are shards of this character?
it stands out to me how upon chapter 2 various menu elements (+ game over song) gets more "gamey", perhaps it has somehting to do with sealing the fountains, as the normal file select screen happens only after chapter 1's fountain is sealed?
I like the analysis and while there are points that I don't believe in (I'll mention them next) there were new perspectives I started considering. For theory 1, I believe the SOUL that we control is supposed to represent us and our will rather than straight up being us. I feel this way because if the SOUL was Kris', that would make the fact that Kris' body can move without the SOUL complicated. We know for a fact we can only control the SOUL since, when separated from it, Kris moves independently as well as us being able to move the SOUL. Theory 2 I don't have much to say about other than the fact it might as well be fact. For Theories 3 & 4, I believe the Faint Courage plays in chapter 2 because our connection with "GEOFF" has been severed to a degree. This is backed up with the fact that the menus start out with "GEOFF" speaking before the ending of chapter 1. After chapter 1's completion, the menus change to be more generic and don't seem to be relating to "GEOFF" nearly as much (especially since Faint Glow isn't apart of the AUDIO files). This idea is also backed up by the thing you mentioned, that being the sounds in each song. Darkness Falls has real instruments showing that it's real and true. Faint Courage uses 8-bit synths to show that it isn't exactly the right game over, almost as if it's a backup for if there was an issue with the real game over. Theory 5 & 6 I don't really have any problems with. Theory 7 I have a similar idea of but I little different. I do believe the dark fountains affect a person's emotions and abilities but I don't believe it's because of "GEOFF". I believe it may be that the dark fountains, as holes in the fabric of reality, release an energy that enhances emotions and magic. I just believe this because I don't think "GEOFF" is actually in a dark fountain but instead the dark fountains are reflecting a place beyond the confines of the world (which is where I believe "GEOFF" is). Theories 8 & 9 are ones I really like. Despite me disagreeing with a lot of the theories, they've still shown unique ideas that I really enjoyed listening to. Amazing work like always!
what if the thing that made spmton and jevil indane is htat geoff showe d a video of sans twerking. like showing all the details and in slow mo and jevil and spamton were straight so they were like aaaaaa and died
I think the soul belongs to the player, not in the sense that Geoff reached into the real world and grabbed the player's soul, but in the sense that Geoff took an in-universe soul and gave it to the player to use. So the soul belongs to the player, even though they aren't using it to stay alive and feel emotions. It's their in-universe vessel basically, what they control fundamentally, before Kris or their companions.
It's probably worth mentioning that The World Revolving, A Cyber's World, Welcome to the City, Hey Every !, Now's Your Chance To Be A-, Big Shot, Keygen, and Another Him are all also fully capitalized in the OST. Some of these are interesting choices if the capitalization is indeed a sign suggesting Gaster's involvement.
i would edit my previous comment but im going to make a new one for this. in the beginning sequence, it wouldn't make much sense for our own soul to appear to us as the player, or for the humans soul to appear to us when we arent the ones asking if we're connected. the only way it would make sense that way is if we're seeing through the humans eyes, which i guess could technically work if the theory about the human and its soul being seperated is true. perhaps the human is inside the darkness with geoff, using the darkness as its container, and since the human has no "light" (spamton even calls our soul the light) thats why the music is called "darkness falls", as the human, who is now sort of darkness or in a state of darkness, had a game over? there are also 7 chapters on the select screen, and 7 human souls in undertale. "faint courage" could relate to the bravery soul, so what if the music and style changing on each chapter is related to a different human in some way? but wait, theres more. the bravery soul is connected to the tough gloves and manly bandana, and we literally box queen. on top of that, we have to dodge and get healed by hands in the photoshop flowey fight with this soul, and queen beats us originally with her detachable hands. if the next chapter related to the justice soul, we could see the empty gun somewhere in the chapter, whether as a physical item or something related to it, or alterinatively it could be related to the kindness soul (green room) and we could be on a cooking show or something and get the apron and pan, assuming that the next chapter is tv related. "before the story" as a menu theme for deltarune could imply that by the end of deltarune everything will be in the state it was in BEFORE the story of undertale, so maybe we start with a full gun and non worn pink gloves (by the way the hands of the thrash machine do happen to be pink...) and end up with an empty gun and worn gloves. Alternatively it could go in soul order of when we encounter the items in undertale, so the next soul could be the patience one. this probably has a ton of holes in it, but i think it would be interesting :)
Something I want to mention (that I have no idea if you’ve ever mentioned before I’m only just recently getting into and binging your channel) but the strange kaleidoscope thing that shows up during the vessel creation is very reminiscent of the kaleidoscope fog thing that is in area exiting Snowdin where you fight papyrus in undertale. I’ve never heard this mentioned before by anyone but I thought it may be evidence for a connection between papyrus and gaster
Honestly, talking about all this information but assigning a new name to it made me think of it in a different way, that's pretty cool. (Weird to actually actively perceive your own bias be turned off in real-time with [one weird trick] though.)
Before I get into this video I must spout my own insane musings into the world: I’ve always felt like the Sound Test room was trying to convey a story. A happy life, a prosperous factory, then suddenly trouble occurs. And all that’s left is Gaster’s ultimate fate. There is no going back.
Did you happen to look up Keygen before you made this video? Keygen is in reference to generating keys for steam, its often used to pirate games which leads to Toby making a song in Deltarune called Keygen to confuse searches for the game.
So quick observation about your party members talking to you in the chapter 2 game over screen. Remember you can restore their HP during battle even if they're knocked to below 0, so they're not dead. With that being said it makes total sense if they talk to you
They may not be dead, but they're definitely unconscious, as evidence by the interactions between Noelle and Berdly during the Snowgrave Route, and the in interaction between Susie and Ralsei during the SCC battle. And knocked out people don't talk.
Alright first of all I just want to say, this video is absolutely incredible. I love all of the theories and I learned quite a few things that I wasn't aware of. BUT HOLY CRAP EVERYTHING JARU SAID ABOUT AUDIO_APPEARANCE (9:33) JUST GAVE ME THE BIGGEST DR BRAINBLAST OF ALL TIME! So I consider myself a self-proclaimed Chara fanatic, (I actually made a vid called "Chara - Undertale's Usurper" if you want to check that out) and so when Chara gets brought up I tend to naturally start overanalyzing things. The reason I'm bringing this up is I've never really thought too much about some of the possible parallels between Chara and... Geoff... Anyways, one thing I just want to get out of the way is Chara's name. I agree that I don't think Toby wants to force the name "Chara" onto every player. My interpretation of Chara is that they are meant to mirror the player in a way, which is why we are able to name them. I think the main reason Toby put in a "true name" at all was actually just to make discussion easier. The Fallen Human can get a bit annoying to say after awhile, so I think he decided on the name Chara, short for Character, so we had a name we could all use even though Chara can have a different name in everyone's playthroughs. Even if that interpretation is wrong, there needs to be SOME reason why Toby even put in a "true name" in the first place, so I'll just continue to call The Fallen Child, "Chara." Now onto my Big Brain Blast. So something Jaru started talking about that caught my attention was the relationship between the red soul and... Geoff. Overall I agree with Jaru, I don't think the red soul is literally meant to represent the players soul, but I think Geoff may be aware of the player. Let me explain my case. So something else Jaru mentions is that Flowey and Chara may be aware of the player to some degree. I actually don't think that's the case for Flowey however. Throughout the game there is a lot of evidence of Chara being present within Frisk. Ignoring the obvious stuff in the genocide route, there's also the flashback to Asriel in waterfall, the game over screens, Chara's name being in the save menu, the dream of Asgore you can see when you go back to bed after fighting Toriel, and the full flashback to Asriel and Chara meeting at the end of True Pacifist. When Flowey talks to you and asks you not to reset, he calls you "Chara." (Or whatever you named Chara) He isn't aware of the player, but he seems aware of Chara, and he also seems to believe Chara is the one with the ability to Reset. I think when we "SAVE" him, he experienced that flashback and eventually realized that Chara was somehow the one actually behind it, and he also realizes that it must have been Chara's DETERMINATION that overrode his own ability to save. This is why I think Chara represents the player. If Frisk is the main_chara being controlled, then the true_chara is the player actually pulling the strings. That's how it looks to Flowey at least. So basically, I don't think Flowey is actually aware of the player. Where I do agree with Jaru though is Chara being aware of the player, at least in the genocide ending. Throughout the genocide run it is constantly implied that Chara has full control over Frisk, but in the genocide ending Chara contradictly (guess I can't figure out how to spell this) says that you were the one who guided them. This has led me to believe that in-universe, Chara is not talking to Frisk as a stand in for the player, but is instead talking to the player directly. It's hard to give an exact logical reason why Chara is able to become aware of us, the best I can come up with is that because they are directly connected to us and they have grown so powerful, they just kinda become aware. I can understand why some may find that hard to believe, but Frisk looking into the mirror while saying "It's me, Chara" and then Chara telling Frisk that they are the one responsible after Flowey ranted about Chara's "stolen soul" just doesn't make sense to me. So, I think Chara is aware of the player, so how does that connect back to Geoff? Selling Souls. At the end of the genocide route, Chara asks for our soul. As Jaru said though, since Chara is a fictional character they can't literally take our soul through the screen. There is another soul however, that technically belongs to us. Frisks soul. We are able to sell the soul of another entity that is under our control, to another superior entity. And this is where things started to click for me. Chara refers to themself as a demon in the second genocide ending. Demons are known for making contracts, that tend to involve selling the soul. The Devil is also associated with sixes, just like... Geoff. When SURVEY_PROGRAM first came out it quite literally made it feel like you were making some kind of deal with the devil in order to install it. "YOU WILL ACCEPT EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS FROM NOW ON." This time however, I don't think we were the ones who sold a soul. I think Geoff... sold Kris's soul... to us. And the most horrifying part of all of this, is the implication that Gaster may have had some control over Kris before we came into the picture. I mean Geoff crap. But before you freak out I'm not saying that I think this means that the third entity theory is confirmed or anything like that. When we sell Frisk's soul to Chara, Chara seems to gain control over us since they can fully take over if you try to do True Pacifist. If Geoff gave up Kris's soul to us, then I think we should ultimately have the most control. What I think is really the takeaway of this theory, is that it could explain why Toriel says that Kris has spent large amounts of time alone for some reason, implying that they have been removing their soul for awhile. If Kris was being controlled by Geoff, they may have started removing their soul then to free themself from his control. The other takeaway from this theory, is that somehow we are a crucial part of Geoff's plan. Geoff had control over a human soul and a hero of legend. Somehow though, giving us access to the world of Deltarune through Kris, was more important to him. That's all the relatively safe stuff I could come up with on my own, but I thought I could make this a bit more fun by tying it in with one of Jaru's theories. I spent a bit of time thinking about what could possibly be of more use to Geoff than Kris? What could we do that he can't? Why gamble something as valuable as Kris's soul on the player? Perhaps, it's the ability to take control of other party members. Maybe, he wants us to manipulate Noelle, so he can get to Dess. If we can make Noelle stronger, then perhaps she'll gain a newfound Determination to search for her sister on her own. As Noelle continues venturing into dark worlds, Geoff could potentially get into direct contact with Noelle. Geoff could help lead Noelle to Dess, in exchange for Noelle's soul. With Noelle's soul as a hostage, Geoff could convince Dess to give up her own soul. If Jaru's theory is right and Dess was the original "hero of legend" then with her soul, Geoff would gain an abundance of DETERMINATION. With that power... he could do anything. Annnnndddd, that's all I had to say! I'm gonna go work on a horrifyingly complex Sans focused video now, yippee.
But what if : undertale and deltarune were just similar enough. What if we wanted even more *POWER* What if we get tired of Kris What if we were to break Noelle What if we fuse our SOUL with hers. Aha-hahahahahaha!!!
@@Azrael_66666 I mean....everything just clicked for me. -Kris can remove the SOUL but he always puts it somewhere where we can't escape. -Doing a Weird Route makes Noelle afraid of the scary entity (us) possessing Kris so maybe she's gonna try to exorcise Kris or something. -According to Undertale a monster with a human SOUL is a "horrible beast with unfathomable power". You see where i am coming from yet? Aha-hahahahaha!
I'm totally behind the soul in the intro being from Kris and the whole "selling your soul to a demon" thing, but I think you're forgetting to consider the vessels in the rest of your analysis. After all, its seems like Geoff's original plan was to have the soul inhabit one of those vessels and not Kris, so we can't really assume his goal had anything to do with Kris or the people of hometown. Now the person who interrupted Geoff on the other hand...
I gotta say: only a quarter into this video and its amazing how well put together and edited this video is, that in tandem with the topic of discussion makes this an absolute treat. I also had NO idea Flowey used twitter, and I've been on the deltarune theory train since chapter 1, which wasn't that long ago, but is still years
Let's look at the pattern set up The Dark World in Chapter 1 was based off games and toys. The main boss was the King of Spades and the optional boss was the Joker. The Dark World in Chapter 2 was based off computers and the internet. The main boss was a motherboard and the optional boss was a spam bot. If the Dark World in Chapter 3 is based off television, the main boss will be something very powerful in that vein, maybe a TV star, a news anchor, or even the remote. The optional boss might be something like a testing channel that's just static or colored bars.
The geoff thing actually worked! There were so many moments where if you replaced the word geoff with gaster, i would've eyerolled reflexively, where with Geoff they flow naturally. I think the UT/DR community has instilled in me gasterphobia
11:23 "That didn’t happen, and there is nothing Toby Fox can do to make me believe otherwise." **Toby Fox heading to Jaru's house to rip out his heart like Scorpion:** "Disprove this, you f______ casual."
You have a surprisingly good point about how the gonermaker sequence doesn't take place right before we wake up inside of Kris. It seems that Kris has a habit of tearing out their SOUL judging by the state of the cage next to their bed. However, I highly doubt it simply happened to another character for the following reason: After waking up inside Kris and going to our first dark world that same day, we stumble upon a save point. When we use it, we see Kris already has a save file with "00:00" playtime. This might mean they saved either at the start of the game, or did it unconsciously at birth. Either way, when we save for the first time, we OVERWRITE Kris' save file with our own, replacing their name with the one we chose during the gonermaker sequence. Although this also works as evidence FOR the gonermaker sequence taking place in the past, since if we were with Kris for awhile between the gonermaker and the start of the game, we simply wouldn't have had a chance to overwrite Kris' save file at any point. Also as an addendum: There's actually fair evidence that "Geoff" himself didn't trick us. At the end of the vessel creation sequence, it suddenly changes to that text. Said text has an internal value of "2" instead of the "666" that is used for Geoff's dialogue, and it's even written in normal capitalization, completely unlike Geoff. It might well have been that Geoff was fully intending to put us in the vessel, but got cut off by an interloper, and we were thrown into Kris instead. Granted, when we game over, or even go to the save selection screen before we beat chapter 1, he seems surprisingly unperturbed by what happened and is just rolling with it.
What if Deltarune (the program on your desktop) is a program to control a soul that is no one's? Or just Kris' soul? Then all Geoff did was upload that program for people in the real world to control the soul in Deltarune's world. The soul doesn't need to be literally the player's actual soul for the soul to technically be "theirs"
Great video as always, I was never super into deltarune lore until I found your content Also an out of context quote I wanted to call attention to: "If you die alone, no encouragement is given"
GEOFF transcending fiction to connect to the real world is kind of already canonical, and that's also true for Flowey Flowey, at the end of the pacifist route acknowledges you, the player, as someone capable of changing the world in which Frisk lives in, asking you to let Frisk live their own life. This implies that, in the philosophy of Undertale, the player's actions and decisions, which are carried out through a soul, are the player's own - making the soul theirs Of course, this becomes a lot more obvious with GEOFF in Deltarune when there is a connection through a soul which you have full control over. It makes sense that you'd consider it yours, the player's, especially since it exists prior to the creation of a vessel. Now, whether this soul is the player's or just a connection to the player's soul (through action), the fact of the matter is that you're stull making the decisions you are making, you are still immersed in that universe, and you are still answering the SURVEY_PROGRAM. If that soul doesn't represent your own, it is still acting as though it is that, and the fact that you're not doing anything else means that GEOFF has, indeed, established a real connection with your real soul. Another thing that we need to take into consideration is that Gaster is not in the Undertale universe, but somewhere in-between that and somewhere else. We still don't understand what that "somewhere else" means, but the very fact that a character exists outside of the game makes them meta by nature. They don't actually need a parallel, if they can potentially exist in (and out) of both games.
I really appreciate you making videos about this game, even though it's not new anymore. I love long form videos, especially ones theorizing about games, so this is right up my alley. Thank you for your work, you have gained a subscriber.
I have many ideas now after your Videos. Maybe some are interesting for you. 1: Ralsei tells the truth in a twisted way. If Deltarune is a timeloop maybe Ralsei experienced a similar game like we do in Deltarune. Relsei is not a Prince of Darkness from a Kingdom of Darkness because this Kindgom is empty - you can’t really be a Prince of something that does not exists, but it does now after chapter 1. If he knew that Deltarune ends similar to that past Game than his Legend is legit because there were 3 Heroes that banished the Angels Heaven, maybe Kris and Susie or other characters. 2: The Game over Text is meant for the Player because in chapter 1 we didn't knew who Susie nor Ralsei were. But after chapter 1 we know our friends, our goal, our Enemy - therefore we are invested in the Game. Which is what the Mystery Man wants from us. Also this aproch explains all the Undertale references because almost anyone plays Deltarune after Undertule. That's maybe why 2 Chapters are free to play and complete before anything else. So that Deltarune is as approchabele as possible - that as many people as possible play the Survey Program/Game in a Meta way. This being wants that as many Players play the Game until the end at all costs for some reason. Maybe to break the Loop, to experinece something different like Flowey or anything else.
