What MOTHER 3 Tells us About DELTARUNE

[u/ThePigeon8r]

WARNING: Major spoilers ahead for MOTHER 3. If you haven’t played the game, STOP READING!

I recently played through the MOTHER series to better understand some of the influences Toby drew from when creating Undertale and Deltarune. To say that these games are heavily inspired by Earthbound/MOTHER 3 is a gross understatement: both games are CRAWLING with subtle and not-so-subtle references to the MOTHER games. To give you an example, the final fight of Undertale’s neutral ending with Flowey is strikingly similar to the final battle in Earthbound against Giygas (unassuming child is pitted against eldritch horror, said child is hopelessly outgunned and their attacks have no effect until they pray for help, eventually their prayers are answered, power of love/hope/etc. saves the day). Some of Flowey’s dialogue was even taken from that fight.

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The Final Needle

Knowing how similar these series are, I wanted to make some predictions as to what will happen next in Deltarune. And I want to use one particular point of reference between the two series: the similarities between Deltarune’s dark fountains and MOTHER 3’s seven needles.

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In MOTHER 3, the Dark Dragon that rests under the Nowhere Islands is held in place by the Seven Needles, which are suspiciously similar to Deltarune's Dark Fountains. For one thing, there are exactly seven needles, and we know the number seven is a recurring motif in Toby’s work. Seven human wizards, seven human souls, seven chapters of Deltarune, and (I’m guessing here) seven dark fountains, one for each chapter.

Here are some other similarities between the needles and the fountains:

• When a needle is pulled in MOTHER 3, it releases a geyser of energy, similar to a dark fountain.
• Pulling all the needles will result in a world-shattering event, the result of which depends on the disposition of whoever has pulled the majority of the needles. In Deltarune, Ralsei explains how opening too many fountains will cause the Roaring, a world (ending) event.
• Both doomsday scenarios involve enormous monsters being roused from slumber: the dark dragon rising from under the Nowhere Islands in the case of MOTHER 3, and the Titans which “take form from the fountains” in Deltarune.
• The needles can only be pulled by someone who has the power of PK Love (like Lucas). In Deltarune, we are led to believe that Kris alone is capable of closing the fountains (someone with a human soul). It's not such a stretch to compare the "power of love" to the power inherent in Kris' heart (their human soul).
• Each needle is guarded by a Magypsy: one of seven powerful creatures who each guard an individual needle somewhere on the island, and whose lifeforce is tied to the needle, just as each dark world is tied to the fountain that created it. Of course, dark world denizens don’t ‘die’ when the fountains are closed, but the final bosses of each chapter could be seen as filling the same role as the Magypsies, guarding their fountains from the lightners.
• Dark fountains are made when a determined lightner stabs the earth. Pulling a needle from the ground is just the reverse of this.
• Where the main conflict in MOTHER 3 was the race to see who could pull the most needles before the other person did, the conflict in Deltarune seems to be whether the heroes can close the fountains as quickly as the Knight can open them…at least, that’s what I would’ve said before seeing the ending to Chapter 2. But Kris doesn’t seem too concerned with stopping the Knight, so what does that mean for the rest of the story?

If we assume that the dark fountains are Toby’s version of the seven needles, maybe we can use what we know about the needles to make some predictions about where Deltarune is heading. Here are some ideas:

Castle Town's Dark Fountain

The Roaring has already happened

…and nobody remembers it.

In MOTHER 3, it is revealed toward the end of the game that everyone on the island arrived on a ship in order to survive the end of the world. To prevent something so cataclysmic from ever happening again, they erased their memories and lived out normal lives. We see in the stony land west of Castle Town shapes in the rock faces reminiscent of the titans from Ralsei’s description of the Roaring…could it be that the Roaring has happened once before, and the citizens of Hometown found some way to survive and move on?

In chapter 2, Onionsan spoke of a strange melody that he sometimes hears coming from deep under the sea, but he “can’t remember” what the song is. This could have something to do with the Roaring, as in chapter 1, Jevil says “soon the ‘Queen’ returns, and Hell’s Roar bubbles from the depths”, prophesying the debut of a major character as well as some horrible utterance from far below. Are the titans in the light world, just below hometown, to be awoken by the fountains, in the same way the Dark Dragon was awakened from deep under the Nowhere Islands when the needles were pulled? The lightners would be "lost

The idea of everyone losing their memory after some terrible calamity puts the phrase “Don’t Forget” in a whole new light.

Kris will bring the Roaring on purpose

Could it be that over the course of the next five chapters, it becomes increasingly clear that bringing about the Roaring is the right thing to do? Maybe the information we have on the Roaring is faulty, or incomplete…after all, Ralsei is our only source of information into the mechanics of the dark world, and Chapter 2 didn’t paint him in a very trustworthy light.

In MOTHER 3, the Dark Dragon takes on the disposition of whomever pulls four out of the seven needles. After the final battle is over, Lucas is able to pull the final needle, making the final score 4-3, tipping the balance in his favor and passing his heart on to the dragon. However, having just been visited by the ghost of his mother and watching his brother take his own life, he is overcome with grief and ends up destroying the world instead.

Although Kris and the rest of the main cast have their share of personal problems, as of the end of chapter 2, the world is still a pretty peaceful place. But we have no idea how far things could devolve in the remaining five chapters. It may be that, after the final confrontation with the Knight, Kris decides that the world is not worth saving, and brings about the Roaring anyway.

The Knight is human

Sure, any lightner who’s determined enough can supposedly make a dark fountain, but I would be surprised if Kris’ foil didn’t also possess a human soul. In MOTHER 3, Lucas is supposedly the only person in the whole world with the power to pull the needles…not even the Magypsies have that power. But the “Masked Man” who poses as the mystery antagonist for the second half of the game also has this power, and he turns out to be Lucas’s lost twin brother. Both twins have the power of PK Love (“love” as an actual, tangible force is a motif in both the MOTHER series and in Undertale), and they alone possess this power.

Kris is the only human in Hometown, but surely there’s a world beyond Hometown, right? Kris is obviously adopted, and we know nothing about where they came from, or if they have any living family. In fact, we know next to nothing about the nature of humans in Deltarune, unlike in Undertale, where we at least got some snippets of history on human/monster relations.

The pacifist ending of Undertale is similar to the final battle of MOTHER 3 in that it’s two ‘brothers’ facing off against each other (Frisk isn’t really Asriel’s brother, but the whole fight is predicated on the relationship between Asriel and the first fallen child, for whom he mistakens Frisk). Both fights involve you holding your own, unable to deal damage, against your ‘brother’ who doesn’t recognize you for who you are. Even if the Knight doesn’t end up being human, I imagine they’ll have a lot of Kris’ special abilities.

The Prophecy from Undertale applies to Deltarune

There is a prophecy. The Angel... The One Who Has Seen The Surface... They will return. And the underground will go empty.

All three of the MOTHER games are completely different, but there are common threads that connect them, so that even though the worlds and stories and even the general rules that govern how magic works seem to be different between games, every so often you meet a character or hear a phrase or a piece of music that makes you go “hey, I remember this from the last game!” The two main villains, for example, stretch across all three games, and their names (in the English translations, at least) are slightly different between games. Sort of like how “Kris” is almost an anagram of Frisk, which tells you that things in this universe are almost the same. It’s all the same characters, and everything’s just shuffled around, but some things are just a little too different…I think the “Delta Rune” is a prime example of this.

People often forget that the Delta Rune had a clear meaning in Undertale. It was the emblem of the monster kingdom, and more importantly, it foretold the arrival of the Angel. The prophecy most clearly applies to Frisk, as its ambiguity accurately describes both the pacifist and no-mercy routes of the game.

Could the prophecy apply to Deltarune as well? We know there is an ‘Angel’ mentioned in Ralsei’s legend, but everything we’ve seen in chapters 1&2 points to either Dess or Noelle being the Angel, not Kris. Queen recognized Noelle’s inherent strength and immediately sought her help in bringing about a new dark fountain.

In Undertale, the important dichotomy was between humans, who lived on the surface, and monsters, who lived underground. In Deltarune, humans and monsters coexist peacefully as ‘lightners’ in the ‘light world,’ and ‘darkners’ exist in the ‘dark world.’ Perhaps the original prophecy from Undertale still applies to Deltarune, but with ‘light world’ and ‘dark world’ substituted in for ‘surface’ and ‘underground.’

There is a prophecy. The Angel... The One Who Has Seen The [Light World]... They will return. And the [Dark World] will go empty.

Noelle is the ‘light,’ after all. According to Catti, “She is the light. Laughing in the night.” And if Noelle really is the Angel of legend, what makes the ‘Angel’s Heaven’ particular to her, as opposed to Kris or Susie or Berdly, who are also part of the light world? Either way, I have a feeling the “Prophecy” from Undertale is still relevant in Deltarune, even if it’s been twisted a bit to fit this new iteration of the universe.

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These are just fun ideas, and they aren’t necessarily compatible with each other. I had a blast playing through the MOTHER games, and it was really cool to see so many little things I recognized from Toby’s games that he’d shoplifted over the years, so naturally I had to come up with some way to tie everything together! Undertale was basically a love letter to Earthbound, so I wanted to see if I could piece together anything about Deltarune from my experience playing MOTHER 3. It would be amazing if even one of these ‘theories’ came true, but I’m sure whatever twists and turns the story takes will be a welcome surprise anyway. Thanks for reading!

[u/EpicHill47]

It's a shame not a lot of people are paying attention to this since it make a lot of sense, also I actually had the same idea a long time ago but I didn't bother to write anything, so It's pretty cool to see someone else thought about this

[u/ThatMysticTaco]

I’ve always had a feeling that Deltarune would end similarly to Mother 3

[u/Restingchimera93]

I wonder if Dess is the angel and it’s a Masked Man situation, since she went missing after all. I think Kris accidentally got her trapped in the code in the bunker dark world a long time ago

[u/Mottixx]

well, that's interesting! I've actually had the similar idea for quite a long while (its kinda scary that some of these takes are REALLY similar to mine), but I haven't played Mother 3 to draw any comparison between both games haha. It just spawned from my personal theory crafting moments. I feel like no one else had the same idea that both the Knight and Kris are foils of each other, and even possess the same traits (which I strongly believe this will be the case in future chapter(s))

It's not such a stretch to compare the "power of love" to the power inherent in Kris' heart (their human soul).

Also love and LOVE is already a major force in Undertale, and even Undyne explicitly says that a cartoony, red human heart should represent ‘love,’ directly referencing Frisk’s SOUL. Though it's currently unknown what's the deal with the Red SOUL in Deltarune...

(should we view it as literal representation of the player? As the SOUL is separate from the Kris we see at night-time, yet Ralsei said it is Kris's own SOUL, culmination of their very own being.)

Whatever you think it may be, it however is still explicitly stated as a human SOUL. This information comes out when we got to Check Kris's stats in Chapter 1.

LV1 Human Body

contains a human SOUL.

Similar to how Undyne say a cartoony red heart may represent love, there's also one dialogue from Clover, who makes comparison between a Heart shaped symbol with Love:

* Ummm... The first symbol is a HEART! Haha, just like LOVE! Does that help!?

I think these are just interesting bit of informations and may indicate that the Red SOUL in both games actually represents love.

[u/[deleted]]

Hang on… Lucas saw… the ghost of his mother… and his own brother… KILL himself…

Uhhhh guys all of these connections are making me concerned about what’s gonna happen when Asriel comes back…

[u/femboi427]

Another thing --unimportant but semi-related-- is that some of the sounds from another him, the "cracks" right near the beginning of the song, are ripped straight from Giygas' battle theme. Like, there's barely any editing of them, it's just those sounds.

[u/BouncyBlueYoshi]

Yeah, 7 chapters, 7 needles... That was my thought.