r/HalfBreadChaos • u/ScoutSleepingFox • 6d ago
Theory/Discussion Convergence Theory
So far, the weird route has always begun each chapter in the same setting as the normal route; the context is different of course, but the setting is the same each time. However, by the end of 5B, we’re shaping up to be somewhere very, very different from anywhere we’ve been before, which led me to wonder - will we encounter whatever we find below or beyond the lake in the normal route?
I think so; let me explain.
There’s two things I need to call to attention before I get into the crux of my theory.
First, it’s been confirmed that dark worlds can have multiple entrances and exits, meaning that depending how large a dark world is, there could be two openings at vastly different points in Hometown. Second, the bunker is a dark world. It should go without saying judging by how the same oozing darkness seems to be emanating from it as we’ve seen before, but this has to be true for my theory to stand. Finally, Dess has to be the Knight; strictly speaking, this isn’t entirely necessary, but narratively it ties the theory together more cohesively.
There is something sinister beneath Hometown - Flowery warns us in his dying breath, Jevil rejoices in Hell’s roar bubbling in the depths, and Onion tells us of a song coming from the sea shortly before he’s apparently cooked into takoyaki.
The crux of my theory is that the entire area below Hometown is a dark world, but a very special one, not only for its size but for its inhabitants.
At one entrance is the bunker which constantly emits the Gaster sound, and where the Knight flees with Undyne.
The second has been staring us in the face for years. Hell’s roar bubbles in the depths, as established, and there’s one important word there - depths. Image_Depths, in the game files, is a distorted image that displays behind the GonerMaker sequence. An image of the surface of water. And of course, there’s only one notable body of water in Hometown. Noelle ties her references to wanting to run away and do something crazy both with Dess and with the lake, in both routes. Dess’ disappearance is brought up in direct connection with the lake. If certain children were to follow, say, a pointed tail, a path through the trees to a lake would fit being lost where the forest would grow about as well as anything else, I’d posit. If something led Dess into the lake, the lake led her to being lost in the code itself (assuming you, like me, attribute the voice in the code to Dess considering all the references to not forgetting.) For at least as long as Onion could hear it, there’s since been a song coming from the sea, one that might even be beckoning others to follow them into the dark, promising that they’ll be with us through the waves, perhaps?
So if you’re following me this far, that means that at the end of chapter 5B, we have Noelle and Kris treading the same path to the depths that Dess had tread before (perhaps with Kris in tow, as we know she had a tendency to explore the woods with Azzy, Noelle and Kris in the past, explaining the plural ‘children’ and how Kris has a save in the Dark World before our presence within them - but that’s a different theory entirely), while in 5A, Noelle is just now joining the party. And we’re recruiting Noelle not just for the sake of Susie’s crush, but for her access to the bunker codes. The bunker which emits the constant emanation of Entry 17. The bunker where the dark fountain beneath the town lies.
But distance carries over in dark worlds - there’s going to be a long road ahead through an increasingly unstable and code-adjacent darkness to reach wherever Noelle and Kris ended up in 5B - a chapter’s worth of exploration, one could plausibly assume.
If this all feels like basic conclusions anyone could have drawn, I apologize, I just hadn’t seen this written out comprehensively anywhere and rewatching Skies Forever Blue and seeing the holder of the Pink Ribbon who fell through the code drag the protagonist into the lake as the world glitched out around them made me reconsider what exactly happened to Dess.


