10 Deltarune Moments That Feel Totally Different When You Replay Earlier Chapters

Deltarune is a game that thrives not only on its narrative, but also on the
individual mysteries set up by every cliffhanger and loose thread. As in
any good story, major revelations have not only affected fans’
expectations for the future, but also their understanding of earlier
events.

Thanks to fantastic use of irony and follow-through, some of the smallest
moments in Deltarune’s earlier chapters have been completely
recontextualized, and we’ll be talking about the wildest here.

As we wait for chapter 6, it’s important to lay out everything we know
and everything that’s become clearer since the game’s initial demo
release. They say hindsight is 20/20, so let’s see how it serves us
going forward.

10

The Prophecy

Where it All Started

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Ralsei’s recitation of the Prophecy is one of the first major setup
moments in Deltarune, both as a fairly cliché story setup and a direct
threat for the party to fight back against later. Since chapter 4, the
Prophecy’s legitimacy and exact wording have been under heavy scrutiny.

Knowing that Ralsei knows everything destined to happen down to the
minute details makes his narration and people-pleasing more unsettling
than charming. Susie’s heavy relevance to the darkest parts of its story
sets her romantic yearning for Noelle up as a major red flag, ripe for
getting ripped down by the grimmer chapters to come.

Susie’s portion of the Prophecy is vague enough that it might not even
be about her, whether that’s through a misstep by Ralsei or deliberate
sabotage from an outside force. The Prophecy itself is far from set in
stone, ironically, and subverting it is already becoming a major
objective of the party.

9

King’s Fight

Every Ruler Needs a Knight

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Throughout King’s fight at the tail end of the chapter, he spends most
of his dialogue praising the Roaring Knight, assigning all his work and
progress to their support. This was the very first mention we got of the
Knight, and at the time most assumed they were some kind of fixture of
the card kingdom.

We’ve gathered much more info on the Roaring Knight since, but King’s
speech is the only case we have of them actually interacting with
someone without hostility.

In every other appearance, they’ve been a snarling aggressor with cruel
laughter as their only method of communication. Hearing that they not
only aligned with King but inspired him does a lot for their threat,
establishing them as more than just a beast.

8

Chapter 2’s Weird Route

It All Starts With Ice

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The weird route was already unsettling enough when it dropped during
Deltarune’s second chapter, adding a touch of that No Mercy dread
Undertale was infamous for. Despite this, the route felt rather
self-contained until chapter 4 gave players a chance to lock it in.

Now that chapter 5 has arrived and given us a massive follow-through,
playing through chapter 2’s Weird Route feels even worse. Knowing how
far it goes and seeing exactly what goes on to shatter Noelle’s psyche
make the metanarrative pain hit all the harder.

7

Spamton’s Secret Fight

Scraping With a Salesman

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Spamton’s Shadow Crystal fight is a massive tonal shift from the rest of
the chapter on the main route, especially at the very end. The battle
takes a lot of notes from Undertale’s Mettaton battles, with Spamton
straight up taking on a form extremely similar to Mettaton NEO.

The actual text of the battle is all about Spamton trying to transcend his
limits, which all sounds very familiar to anyone who has seen chapter
5’s Weird Route dialogue. Combined with the constant discussion of
Heaven and his angelic design, Spamton’s fight feels very different from
what we originally thought.

Angels specifically are feeling more and more relevant the longer the
game goes, both to symbolize the player and the larger figures
controlling the Prophecy. For a goofy salesman, Spamton feels far more
relevant than ever expected.

6

The Shelter

Shadow Bubbling to the Surface

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The Shelter, the massive bunker at the southernmost tip of Hometown’s
map, has been mysterious since Deltarune’s very first chapter, with each
release slowly giving us more and more details about it. Over time,
we’ve learned plenty. It is likely the site of whatever terrible accident happened to Dess;
multiple members of the town are acting to keep it sealed, and most
recently, Kris has access to it.

Thanks to these facts, it is largely assumed to be some kind of central
base for the Knight and whoever is assisting it in the Light World. This
makes Kris’s access to it when they break our control all the more
interesting. Kris is clearly willing to do something drastic, including
working with those who directly oppose the party.

After the most recent reveal of the strange flower seeds Kris pocketed
and likely took back to the bunker, it feels like we’re watching them
teetering over a ledge with no way to help. If they’d even let us.

5

Tenna’s Breakdown

Give the Man a Break!

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Tenna is a massive source of comedy in chapter 3, but he’s also the
source of a very off-putting little tantrum towards the tail end of the
chapter, right before his boss fight. In it, he laments not only the
state of the Dreemurr family but specifically Kris, pointing out just
how differently they’ve been acting over the course of the night.

We know that the source of this difference is the player’s interference,
but that dichotomy is a major stress point, both for Kris and the
player. Who knows what Kris really acts like and whether or not close
friends like Susie, who met them after the swap, will actually care
about them?

On our end, we really don’t know what Kris is capable of or what
they’re willing to do when the chips are down, and it adds a layer of
dread to the entire scene.

4

The Knight’s Reveal

Alone Stands the Knight

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After all the buildup and vague hints towards
the Knight, their sudden reveal in chapter 3 was a massive surprise,
and the small amount of characterization we’ve gotten for them has
painted a picture of their true motives.

Most interestingly, the scene that plays when you beat the Knight, where
they seemingly knight Kris, has been given extra weight by how clearly
Kris is standing in their corner. After fighting off the Flowers and
pocketing the highly toxic seeds at the tail end of chapter 5, Kris is
willing to go above and beyond, even considering harming themselves to
align with the Knight’s goal.

This is a horrifying setup for what chapters 6 and 7 could bring,
especially with 5 being marketed as “one last happy adventure.”

3

The Holiday Estate

Every Kid Deserves to Snoop

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Working
your way through
Noelle’s house at the start of chapter 4 was a great peek into her
psyche after not getting much for her in chapter 3, while also allowing
us to put together a bit more info on Dess Holiday herself.

Not only did we get plenty of extra scenes between Susie and Noelle, but
we also got some more direct moments to see how exactly Kris acts
without the Soul piloting them, making it clear that they can survive
without it, at least for limited periods.

Most importantly, finally meeting Hometown’s mayor, Carol Holiday, added
a tension that immediately made her a candidate for the Knight to many
players. I won’t say I fully buy that theory, but she is officially on
the table as an incredibly potent threat, alluding to both knowledge of
and cooperation with Kris’s goal.

2

Gerson’s Dust

All That Remains of a Hero

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Chapter 4’s dark world was shockingly somber at times, setting a future
tone while finalizing quite a few rules for how light world monsters and
Darkners can overlap. Namely, through Gerson’s inclusion, we learned
that dead Darkners, at least monsters, can manifest in Dark Worlds if
items with their dust are within a fountain’s range.

This opens the door for any
missing or dead
characters to potentially show up in the future, or for items
connected deeply to certain characters to manifest either as them or
similarly to them. I fully believe this is how we’ll get some extra
context on Rudy after his “falling down” early in chapter 5, and that it
will lead to massive drama going forward.

1

Gaster

The Vaguepost King

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From the earliest launch of Deltarune, fans have assumed the strange
voice that speaks to us during the character creator was Gaster, based on
the speech pattern that it uses and the dialogue from the Deltarune
Twitter.

Following his extra dialogue in chapters 3 and 4, I grew extremely
confident in that theory, and facts from both the normal and Weird Routes
of chapter 5 have fully convinced me that we will meet the Man Who Speaks
in Hands before Deltarune is through. Given what happens to Onionsan
via one of Gaster’s Goners and his clear significance in the
“B-Side” cutscene in the Weird Route, he is by far our biggest mystery
and one that fully recontextualizes every bit of dialogue we get from
him.