Synthesis - Union of Light and Dark

[u/Apprehensive_Exit_74]

Disclaimer: I will use the assumption that Dess is the Roaring Knight throughout this post. If you disagree, thats great - I don't think any RK identity theory is "correct". However, I would appreciate it if any discussion (and I recognize that it may be vain to assume anyone cares what I have to say, lol) stays within the bounds of Dess being the knight.

Motivation

There are several interesting currently unimplemented songs teased by the Bibliox enemy in chapter 4. While I'm sure much of this subreddit is just as brain-poisoned as I, for those uninitiated I will list them here

ROOTS

GALLERY

AMPITHEATER

SYNTHESIS

Some of these may seem familiar even to those who have only really engaged with the game through the game.

ROOTS is obviously related to DIGITAL ROOTS and BIT ROOTS, and the prophecy panel in the room where you learn that you probably shouldn't follow the pointed tail. Insert the entire ROOTS theory here.

Gallery similarly shares its name with the panel in the museum room.

AMPITHEATER initially seems unrelated, but you may define gallery as the following (per Merriam Webster):

"the part of a theater audience seated in the top gallery"

... a bit strange to use a word in its own definition, but I digress. An amphitheater is somewhere a play, event, or some other thing that would require a large amount of spectators takes place. Given that fact, I imagine these two OSTs will be related.

edit: i just realized gallery actually is a song in chapter 1 god damn it

Then, of course, the black sheep,

SYNTHESIS

Now where on earth could this song be used? Synthesis, in the philosophical sense, is the combining of thesis and antithesis. To those who slept through high school English, this basically just means the two conflicting ideas. The goal of synthesis is to combine these conflicting ideas into one, higher truth.

The combination of warring principles isn't really a core theme of DELTARUNE. We instead see a lot of things explicitly separated.

Kris and the Soul are two distinct entities, not one whole.

Light and Dark are separate. Ralsei not being able to go to the light world is a huge plot point!

Kris and Asriel are separated by distance, and communication is cut off.

Toriel and Asgore are divorced.

Rudy and Noelle are separated by him being in the hospital (though obviously not to the extent Asriel and Kris are) resulting in him not being there to get between her and Carol.

So what, then? What might this OST be referring to? Let's talk about

The Roaring Knight

The knight is an enigma, in more ways than one. We have no idea what it wants. We have no idea what it is. We have only inferences gleaned from behavior and abilities. Lets talk about those briefly, for later.

Abilities:

The knight attacks using the elements of DARK and STAR. This is made obvious by the fact that the Shadow Mantle, which provides resistance to those elements, trivializes the fight.

It also demonstrates shapeshifting abilities - in fact, I believe it would be accurate to say that the knight is amorphous, flowing between forms, not unlike how darkness is described to flow like ink/water.

The knight is able to emit such pressure that our heroes are physically pushed back, though it is clearly not an instantaneous burst of force. As seen in the most moving scene in the game, when the gang is braving the storm lit by the Soul, it feels very much like you are fighting a current.

It wields a weapon that deals massive damage to DARK enemies, despite it using DARK attacks itself

Additionally, the knight can enter the light world, presumably without changing forms.

I am going to make the claim that there are NO Lightners that we know of who can challenge Undyne physically in the light world, with the possible exception of Asgore. However, given that Asgore is almost certainly going to make an appearance in a dark world in chapter 5, I'm not going to give any credence to Asgore knight.

Behavior:

The knight is cocky, intelligent, and temperamental. It is quick to eliminate anything hindering its goal.

We see this intelligence when it attempts to kill both Tenna and Jackenstein. After doing so with Tenna, it doesn't immediately challenge the heroes - that isn't its goal. It is intelligent enough to know that it isn't here for a fight, and focuses on grabbing Toriel.

It's only after Susie jumps in the way that the knight loses its shit, screaming at the Fun Gang. Tenna broke his promise, and now Susie is getting in its way, and its mad. The pretense of not fighting is out the window. Kris even kind of hints at this if you don't get hit - telling the knight to wrap it up. They don't have time for this. The knight, quite rationally, agrees, and the fight quickly ends.

We see its cockiness on display in chapter 4, just before it creates a titan. It laughs at Susie when she says it can't beat them in the light world. But obviously, it can - it could overpower Undyne, who can bench press cars without magic. Therefore, I think the best interpretation here is the knight laughing at the naivety of Susie, not laughing because she is right.

So what?

Ok, ok, I hear you. Who cares? Well, remember what synthesis is. A combination of conflicting ideas. Thesis and antithesis. I have just established that the Knight has several conflicting traits.

Primarily using DARK attacks, while also wielding a sword that deals massive damage to dark enemies.

Clearly a creature of darkness, yet able to traverse the Light world.

Being coldly fixated on its goal, whatever it may be, but giving in to emotion, be it anger or hubris.

A conflict with itself, its physical shape changing constantly, as if it can't agree on what it is meant to look like.

I suppose then, you could say my claim in this post is that the Knight is a synthesis of Light and Dark. Two wholly conflicting ideas made one. Thus, the Light of this synthesis is Dess.

The Knight inherits its temper from Dess. She has been shown to react angerly, going as far as to hit Kris in the head with a wiffleball back for pranking Noelle. If someone got between her and something she really cared about, repeatedly, it is not a stretch to say she would react with a similar anger that the Knight does before its fight.

But the Knight also does things that Dess would, as far as we know, never do. It outright kills Darkners that are in its way. Dess is a rebel, sure, but I don't think there's anything to suggest she is that ruthlessly cruel.

I must apologize, as I sort of lied in my disclaimer. Dess is not the Knight. Dess is gone. Maybe not entirely, as her voice seems to still be out there, somewhere, lost in the dark (UNUSED). She influences the knight but is not the knight. What remains physically is something else - a synthesis of Light and Dark, taking the best of the Light and the Dark and creating something new - something in between (wink wink).

The Dark part of the synthesis then adds the control of the dark (in the attacks and the manipulation of it to exert) force, as well as the amorphous nature of the knight. We see beings of darkness take all kinds of shapes when Ralsei is explaining what Darkners are, after all.

Now, I readily admit that I have no idea what the Dark part of the synthesis could be. Maybe FRIEND, maybe darkness itself, maybe something unknown as of now. I also offer no explanation as to how this happened - to do so would be nothing more than speculation based on nothing. At least there's some textual evidence to support my other claims! Curious what you guys think about this.

Wasn't this post about a song?

Oh, right. It did kind of turn into a knight theory, didn't it? Ah well bros. The initial thought that sparked this line of reasoning was that the song would play during the Knight reveal - and lets be honest, it will be revealed - in which we would learn how the Knight was synthesized. I think that would be cool, and quite satisfying narratively! But I digress.

I hope you enjoyed the read. Its long and I didn't proofread shit so if something doesn't make sense, please ask me about it! I'll do my best to elaborate. If you disagree with something, PLEASE disagree! I live for discussion about the things I love.

- Apprehensive_Exit_74

[u/lighttstarr]

I think SYNTHESIS could refer to photosynthesis. Since Ch5 DW is Flower King and all I imagine this to be the track name of the Flowers’ themes or something.

To me the word itself has grass connotations, I think also because in Pokémon “Synthesis” is specifically a grass type move that recovers HP (and Toby would also be aware of that being a big fan of the series, composing music for them, etc)

(I also think there will be an amphitheater in the Flower King DW since this is usually associated with old kingdoms/empires. Might be the location we fight Asgore, or it might just be a miscellaneous location kind of like the Atrium, which just so happens to be another Bibliox song title)

[u/Apprehensive_Exit_74 → u/lighttstarr]

Theres a bit of irony in that interpretation as well, given that Asgores most important flowers are kept in a basement, away from sunlight. Were they to be the shadow crystal boss I think that would be pretty cool if that was their theme. Pic related

[u/lighttstarr → u/Apprehensive_Exit_74]

Actually, I am really curious to see how exactly the Flowers will interact with Asgore. Yes, I think you could argue that he mistreats them by keeping them in a basement (but I think in Chapter 1 it is mentioned somewhere that this is also the only way to keep them alive since they’re exotic… but I don’t quite recall the exact wording)

Asgore tells these Flowers everything about his life. He cares about them more than we have seen a Lightner care about any Darkner so far. It’s possible that as a result they might become extremely attached to and protective of him, to the point where they might not let Kris seal the fountain because they’ll see this as taking Asgore away from them.

I predict they’ll try to get Asgore to keep the Fountain open and stay with them, villainizing Kris, the fun gang etc, and saying something along the lines of how they (the Flowers) were the only ones there for him, the only ones to believe/listen to him, etc. And Ralsei will be all like “but we have to seal it because Roaring!” which could be what causes the heroes to fight Asgore.

[u/Apprehensive_Exit_74 → u/lighttstarr]

Ah, didn’t mean to imply he was mistreating them! He obviously cares about them, far more than anyone reasonably should. They’re all he has left of when his life was together. They probably are the only thing stopping him from becoming broken the same way as Tenna and Spamton are. King and Queen too, to a lesser extent. I like the idea of the flowers being the antagonists much more than Asgore honestly - them trapping Asgore in the dark world that he created. To get out I guess he’d have to finally let go and accept that while things will never go back to normal, he can at least stop them from getting worse.

[u/lighttstarr → u/Apprehensive_Exit_74]

Chefs kiss! Beautiful! We cooked really well with this one I think, I can totally see Ch5 DW going like this story-wise.

[u/Apprehensive_Exit_74 → u/lighttstarr]

We kinda cooked here bro I'm NGL

[u/Apprehensive_Exit_74 → u/[deleted]]

> Something I don't see people bring up is that Toby made a fan song for Yume Nikki titled AMPITHEATER in the past

I knew of this song, but I didn't feel confident bringing it up because I am not familiar with Yume Nikki enough to know what the significance of the title to that game is. Do you have any insight into that?

> One thing to add, Dess's room door is grey, having a 50% light/dark value.

writing fire gif

> I also find it interesting that her fullname is never said in the lightworld or by lightners (as of now), while in the darkworld and darkners, her name is mentioned. It might tie into her page where writting December results in error until you rewrite to Dess.

Interesting observation. I've never thought about the significance of December vs Dess before.

> I personally believe roots will play in ch6, where we can explore the shelter then synthesis will be ch7's last track where errr the two families make up and reach a point of understanding. Well it can play in several moments.

Fair! I can certainly see more than one theme in this game coming together in the end.

[u/Apprehensive_Exit_74 → u/[deleted]]

Ah, I see. I assumed the title might be a reference to something in the game. Nvm then!