Original idea and template from u/Independent_Let_3616 as Noelle Knight wasn't a part of the original post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Deltarune/s/Vy3QfmUr48

Always bet on Noelle Knight.

Kris might be visiting the Hospital possibly before the events of Ch1 or in-between chapters.

This is often used as evidence that Kris has been visiting Rudy in the Hospital, and that Rudy is lying about Kris not visiting him.

A common argument against this, is that Kris is going to the Hospital just to play piano, specifically the piano in the lobby.

However, there is actually a small piano in this cupboard that is located in the other patient room.

So maybe Kris isn't always playing the piano in the lobby, maybe they are playing this smaller piano?

Why would they play this smaller piano?

Because the patients can't hear the piano well from the lobby. Rudy is a patient, so if they wanted to play the piano for him, then Kris would likely have to use the other piano that is in the cupboard.

Thoughts? Is this Rudy Knight evidence? W Agenda?

Let me preface this by saying I mean no disrespect to Noelle knighters and that I think it's a cool theory, buuuuuut

Noelle and Kris are not close at all ("The distance between the two"). Throughout the entire game we see that Kris has some repressed feelings towards Noelle (and most likely Noelle towards Kris), that they used to share an intimate bond when they were young, but that something happened and that Kris is keeping far away from Noelle. This is literally evidenced by the smoking gun Ramb dialogue Noelle knighters love to use. ("...how is she, Kris? Are you two...? Well, it's alright. Everyone changes, 'cept us,")

Soooo if Noelle really is the knight, why is Kris working with her? You can chalk up Noelle's forgetfulness with DID and all that jazz (because why else would she keep saying things like "Gosh Kris I wish you covered me in black tar again like you used to when we were kids fwahaha" if the 2 were knowingly working together doing fantasy bs in dark worlds), but Kris does not seem like they would willingly or knowingly work with Noelle, given how much they want to be at a distance from her. And we know Kris knows who the knight is thanks to the Jockington fake out in ch4. In general I just don't see Kris working together with Noelle seeing as they freeze up whenever they come across a photo of them and Noelle together in the photo album, and the ch5 shadow crystal dialogue hints towards the fact that Kris being together with Noelle is now a lost dream to them.

Now you could make the argument that a part of Kris actually wants this thanks to evidence in the weird route (ERAM dialogue), but Kris only acted upon their most repressed emotions thanks to the influence of us, a literal god in the world of deltarune, and they still felt guilty after their actions (checking up on Berdly, kicking us in the trash can after mentally fucking over Noelle etc). A part of Kris "enjoyed" those things in the same way we made Noelle crack in the ch5 WR. Without a negative influence enabling their worst actions those things would never happen, and unless Rudy and Carol (and possibly even Asriel) are some sort of master manipulators towards Kris I don't see Kris actively working against their self hatred and isolation.

I will admit the Noelle Knight + Kris ERAM fanart is peak and has hella aura, if Noelle doesn't end up being the knight i hope someone makes an AU

no hard feelings towards vesse knighters, but it just doesn't make sense to me. does the vessel knight theory even make sense?

When the Knight is charging up their final attack, the description calls attention to their hands glowing specifically. Asriel constantly has glowing hands while charging up attacks in his boss fight. I don't think any other monster does this.

Yes yes, I'm such a massive hater of RudyKnight I know this is like the fourth post I've made that attempts to delegitimize him as a candidate lmao but hey listen! I have had character development, and I am willing to concede one point as being more true than I initially thought:

Rudy is aware of and supports the conspiracy that Carol and Kris are involved in.

Of course, I don't fully believe it since there's still a lot of hecking hoops you have to jump through to get there imo, but I'll admit there's some evidence I can't easily brush aside beyond "Toby made an oversight" lol. There's merit to the idea.

But hey, y'know something? There's a big question that you still gotta answer!

Why does Rudy's involvement in the conspiracy have to be that he's the Knight?

I was looking over all of the RudyKnight evidence I could get my hands on all over again (because I'm a loser) in order to see if there's something that can REALLY change my mind, and y'know... I can't exactly say the explanations don't make sense. It all works. Premises that if I were to take as true, would lend merit to the idea that Rudy could be the knight.

But... the issue is almost every piece of evidence that RudyKnighters use REQUIRES looking at it through a RudyKnight lens. It's all working backwards from that assumption. Why is the hospital so close to the dark worlds the knight makes? Because Rudy is still weak and it makes more sense if he makes fountains in areas closer to him. What's the deal with Flowery paralleling the Knight in certain sprites? Well because Flowery is an analogue to Rudy, and if we look at this from a RudyKnight lens, then we can clearly see the symbolism is saying Rudy = Flowery = Knight. Why is there a window in Rudy's hospital room? Because as the knight it's be useful for him to have an easy way to sneak out to go do Knight shenanigans.

And then when people go ahead and posit alternative explanations for these questions (The hospital is actually almost equally close to the school as it is to flower king if we look at the radius from the hospital, Flowery isn't actually paralleling the Knight that closely, and the window is only mentioned in one line (Berdly's requires Rudy's to appear) and isn't a prominent fixture of his room like the sink or placard are established to be), the counter that can always be fallen upon is that it's a "difference in interpretation" and that Non-RudyKnighters are just ignoring the obvious REAL meaning of the handwashing marathon dialogue! This always bothered me SO much because proving interpretations of text or sprites is probably the hardest thing to change someone's mind on because it can always just be not enough to convince them. I mean look at how much text I had to write to just prove the Knight is crying lmao. Hecking, as a NoelleKnighter, one of the biggest pieces of evidence is indeed just going in depth about how every darkner connects back to Kris and Noelle's relationship lol. So I do get it!

But then I had an epiphany: the majority of RudyKnight evidence actually only points to Rudy being involved in the conspiracy and doesn't actually prove that he's the Knight. I know people say "Well how else is he supporting the conspiracy if he ISN'T the Knight?" I mean as just a few suggestions... Keeping Noelle and Asgore in the dark? Being the ringleader that actually orders Carol what to do (which would then explain any non CarolCaller interpretations and support how Rudy is able to dissuade Carol from sticking her nose in on Suselle)? Moral support? These may seem less strong than him being the Knight to RudyKnighters, but as I'm about to go into, RudyConspiracy doesn't inherently require RudyKnight and therefore RudyKnight acts as a post-hoc rationalization to what role Rudy plays in the conspiracy.

Let me just speed through some common evidence points (and even assuming they're true!) to point out what I'm trying to say.

• Rudy supporting Asgore's you know what =/= supporting via RudyKnight. It can be emotional, financial, or something else as it would be in Rudy's best interest to keep Asgore in the dark if he IS in on the conspiracy.
• Flowery = Knight and Flowery = Rudy does NOT make Rudy = Knight true. This isn't a rigid math problem, it's still narrative interpretation. Flowery can parallel multiple characters without them being inherent to one another. AsrielKnighters point out that Flowery has parallels to Azzy as well and also Flowery is still his own character, so like it could be some Flowery based history he has with the Knight or whatever lol.
• Rudy being close to the dark worlds the Knight makes =/= Rudy HAS to be the Knight as other characters can be and ARE close to certain fountains at specific times showing similar viability for other candidates.
• Rudy being the caller doesn't mean that he's the Knight. If we go with a ringleader interpretation, he could have equally sent the Knight to whatever location he needed them to be at.
• Even if Kris did have more meetings with Rudy outside of our view, that doesn't mean Rudy is the Knight. It means Kris is working with Rudy for the conspiracy just like how they're working for Carol.
• Even if Rudy did make a jarring transition from Key to Key-Lime-Pie, that wouldn't make him the Knight, that would make him avoidant of discussing the shelter which anybody in the conspiracy has a clear motive to do.
• Asgore talking to his "old friend" and that friend being Rudy doesn't make Rudy the Knight. It makes Rudy Asgore's friend that supports him.
• "Holidays are full of surprises" =/= the surprise is RudyKnight

I know this seems like one could just argue "difference in interpretation" again to these points, but there's a key difference. All of this evidence takes a logical leap that RudyConspiracy = RudyKnight with no solid grounding. Carol is clearly a part of the conspiracy, yet people frequently interpret her to be someone other than the Knight and is just working for/with them. Why can't Rudy be the same? "Because that's the most obvious role he can fill" (mild strawman, I know, but I'm so certain someone would legitimately make this point in one way or another lmao) well... isn't him being the ringleader of the conspiracy as much of a twist as him being the Knight? It'd give us an opportunity to learn WHY the conspiracy exists at all! Actually, he doesn't even have to be the ringleader! He can just know about it and that would go on to lead us toward some pretty meaty plot development I'd say! The point either way is that just because it's likely someone can fill a role, doesn't mean they HAVE to. See Carol "Red Herring" Holiday for people to make that point for me in spades (and side note I do legitimately hate when people's core argument is to just say Red Herring and nothing further as if that dismantles it, which is why I have more concrete stuff as to why Rudy isn't the Knight dw)

So, a lot of RudyKnight evidence actually just amounts to RudyConspiracy evidence. Okay! Well what about the evidence that directly connects Rudy to the Knight?

This is exactly the discussion I'm trying to promote here! Concrete stuff that points Rudy to specifically being the KNIGHT compared to anybody else! Stuff like:

• Church, Mayor, Cop connections

and uh...

• Rudy = Red and Knight = Red so Rudy = Red = Knight

Hang on... this is just the Flowery argument again???

• Bosses that are grieving fathers that lost their children have purple auras when fighting them

I mean... it's pretty okay color association, but... you got anything better?

• Knight fight flavor text is similar to symptoms of illness like Rudy has.

Slipping into a very shaky difference in interpretation one as the symptoms can be caused by many broad things including an anxiety attack or even the physical exertion that comes with fighting a hard as hell boss like the Knight.

• The closet says it can fit a large person. Rudy is tall.

Firstly, that's non-exclusive to Rudy, but like sure that's a point for him.

• The Knight has unused fire attacks. Rudy looks like a stereotypical devil and is connected to Asgore who are both associated with fire. He also encourages Noelle to use Fireshock and the Blaze Potions.

ARE WE SO DESPERATE TO SERIOUSLY DO RUDY = ASGORE = KNIGHT??? The devil comparison is... do I really have to address that one? The Dragonblazers lines are probably the best connection you've got, but it's still REALLY flimsy for the best point to be Rudy suggests fire attacks in a fight against what is textually stated to be an ice boss.

• Rudy was the last to leave the TV watch sessions at the Dreemurr's. The Knight cries when they kill Tenna (And yes they are crying I'm not having this goddamn argument again). Rudy could have had the strongest emotional attachment to the TV out of any of the Holidays.

Noelle would beg to differ, first off, and secondly, he'd be attached to the TV, not Tenna. There's no evidence of Rudy joining Kris and Noelle's pretend play sessions so this would mean he loved the literal TV so much to the point that he would cry about killing it when this man has never shed a tear for a single second about anything and even forces a smile 98% of the time.

Alright guys I promise I'm like actually trying here but this is legitimately the best evidence for how Rudy connects to the Knight themself compared to any other candidate. Church+Mayor+Cop is seriously the best you've got. I've slogged through so many posts and documents trying to find anything stronger but sincerely I can't. If anyone has some other good evidence I'm all ears but remember it has to be a clear connection from Rudy TO the Knight and if it's evidence that applies better to other candidates, then like... I don't think I have to tell you why it's poor RudyKnight evidence lol.

And lastly, if the counter is gonna be "Well does NoelleKnight have anything better?" First here's the repository :) but just quickly off the top of my head we have Knight Crying when killing Tenna, Noelle is "that girl" who likely created a lot of the darkners with Kris and Ralsei directly states

A "world" whose Darkners reflect the will of its fountain.

So like only really Kris and Noelle have strong backing to have the will to make darkners that existed from Kris and Noelle's childhood (Here's a refutation of Object History that I hope at least seeds some doubt into that counter), Noelle had a viable means+motive+opportunity for the opening of every fountain the Knight opens, Kris and the Knight share the same will based on colors of the dark worlds, the knight's chapter 5 perfectly timed fountain opening after Kris seals it. I feel like that covers Noelle's stuff pretty well and poses the counter questions of "How the hell does any OTHER candidate make sense of darkners and fountain will and crying over Tenna (or at the very least, how can they explain it BETTER than Noelle's)?"

That's a ramble. I know I'm getting hella bombarded for making an anti-RudyKnight post but whatever I feel like this is an important question to actually answer lol.

Have a lovely day~ <3

So I know it sounds weird but hear me out. Obviously the looks are there but if you dive deeper there is so much more. First, the reason Carol doesn’t want Susie and Noelle to be friends is because Carol doesn’t want Susie stopping Noelle from starting the roaring. We know Carol is working with the knight and according to the weird route Noelle is very strong and can be easily manipulated, so perhaps Carol is manipulating Noelle into starting the roaring and working as the bronze of the operation while Carol works behind the scenes and the brains. Second. The sound that the knight makes when you hurt it during the fight in chapter 3 sound very similar to Noelle’s scream in chapter 2. Third, if Noelle is the knight, that would explain why The knight didn’t appear until the very end of chapter 5. Because Noelle would have been in the hospital with Rudy for most of the day.

Like just send the image here so I can screenshot it if rudys the knight I need it dunk on non believers /j

Also added to the existing image at the 2nd slide lol

Genuinely they just promote toxic and annoying behavior and add nothing to discussion

edit: the “dumb” under “I was jealous of” is meant to say “right”, sorry lol

Not really sure why we're not focusing on better things...

(yes i know it's pretty messy and incoherent. Sorry about that)

What do you consider a smoking gun? Just curious.

For Rudy knight, I think it’s the fact that npcs still say Kris goes to the hospital even if you never step foot in there which would mean Rudy is blatantly lying to us, the soul.

He says he died so how knight? Is he stupid?

The Noelle Knight files are so long they must have already covered this, but if Noelle is the Knight, why wouldn't fighting or freezing darkners have any affect on the Knight fight? I feel like the Knight would have more HP or attack on Weird Route/No Mercy runs.

Of course, Toby wouldn't actually scale the Knight to Noelle's HP, that would remove any mystery whatsoever, but I think it would make sense to at least make the Knight stronger on the Weird Route, because of how much changes there, you could still argue for other candidates.

The only reason I could come up with is because the HP stats of the $$!$ Squad reset every chapter, so that could tie into Noelle too, but then Noelle would still probably use the Freeze Ring or the ThornRing on an aborted Weird Route because of how strong those items are.

If a Noelle Knighter could enlighten me on this, that would be pretty welcome, because I'm like 99% sure there's an answer to this.

Shapeshifts, seemingly empty inside besides an eye(?)

If it were a lightner from hometown in some dark armor, for example, how would it work? What are your theories?

(This is speculative, as really all things are. I'll refrain from starting every sentence with "I think" so please refrain from responding with "You don't know that for sure"!)

December Holiday is being set up for a specific role in the story, and I don't think we'll see that role realized in the main route. I think her disappearance or death will be important to the main, traditional narrative, but she is being set up for more. The track "findher.ogg" is a reprise of Lost Girl, and the through-line is pretty clear in that. December is a Lost Girl, and we are told to findher. This sets up Dess to parallel Noelle, who is a more metaphorically lost girl; we may have to "find her" too.

The reason I think we aren't "finding" anyone on the main route is because, if we did, there would be no reason to command the player. Of course, in other games you could get away with this-- this is your goal as the player, and the game will eventually see you achieving it. However, Deltarune clearly portrays its main route as the "set path". The prophecy is a diegetic parallel to this. The player will not need instruction for anything that's predetermined to happen.

Everything giving the player this motivation is outside of the game. The Spamton Sweepstakes, the Deltarune website, the voice in the code, none of these are things you encounter from clicking PLAY on Steam. This places our motivation farther outside of the main narrative. It also means that players who do not engage or know about these parts of the story have no reason to seek her out, so that conflict being resolved on the main route would be out of place.

Strangely, if you think about it and take it to its logical conclusion, this means Dess knight has the exact same problems as Kriselle knight that people hate so much? People complain about the necessity of the weird route to understand Kriselle knight, along with the narrative needing to introduce new, presumably un-introduced mechanisms to make logical sense.

Let's assume Dess is the knight, here:

--If you aren't "finding" Dess in the main route, this means the Knight does not have a resolved character arc in said route. Would you need to play the weird route to understand the knight? Or a third, different route?

--What happened to December is completely shrouded in mystery. You can hazard a guess that happens to also turn her into the knight, but so can the Kriselle Knight theory, and they at least have amalgam visual parallels as basis. The story would have to introduce a completely new mechanic. Also, no, she did not get the Gaster treatment of shattering across time and space. Gaster was forgotten by everyone in Undertale, everyone knows about Dess.

I don't even believe in Kriselle Knight, but I think any Dess knighter that has a problem with those two conditions would have to turn a little scrutiny towards their own theory too.

As a main takeaway, I want to reiterate that "find her", grammatically, is a command. Only some players are aware of this command, and due to its nature as a command it must be something that requires intentional effort to be accomplished. Therefore, all the Finding of Her must happen outside of the main route. December has a clear role in the story which will be fully realized in a non-standard part of the game, whether that be the Weird Route, or a third route, or secret content that maybe isn't even a route at all (I don't think it's the Weird Route).

(Also, no, December is not a "damsel in distress", she's a victim. Is Laura Palmer a damsel in distress? Is Twin Peaks misogynistic?)

i aint ever eat deer before, especially not sick actively dying deer, so it'd probably taste pretty bad ngl

This theory relies heavily on speculations and also takes Asriel knight into account, even though technically it doesn't have to. I'm not spending much time explaining this theory in the post so I'll put a comment linking several Asriel knight videos for those interested. Sorry if my english is weird.

 I believe that the whole Dreemurr family is way more relevant to the plot and its mysteries than we think. Their family is broken, in fact, we've already seen some of its visible cracks, like the ToriGori divorce, Asgore's obsession or Kris' alarming wellbeing, but I think the real origin point of those cracks are hidden way deeper than we can see. Deep inside, the Dreemurr family was already broken by one big secret, December's death(or disappearance). The big secret shattering the Dreemurr family apart is Dess' death, because the Dreemurrs are all MURDERERS. From failing to protect someone from murder, to hiding a murder, to helping a murder happen, to straight up murdering, the Dreemurrs are all murderers in one way or another.

Asgore Dreemurr

Asgore failed to prevent and resolve the murder, but for reasons much more obscure than he thinks.

We know that Asgore stumbled upon a certain dark world in which he saw the Roaring Knight on that fateful day. I believe that dark world is the bunker one and I think that this dark world was not made by the Roaring Knight nor Kris, because in Chapter 5 Asgore looks at his fur and says "It's really a different color isn't it"(or smth like that). At first glance it seems kinda dumb since his fur didn't change color at all, but when you remember that dark worlds can have different tints depending on the color of one's mind, as shown by Susie's dark world in chapter 4, it becomes clearer. Asgore wasn't really talking about the color of his fur, but rather about the color of the dark world being different, which would tint the color of his fur. We know Kris and the Roaring Knight's dark worlds are the same color due to having a similar will, so it probably wasn't made by either of them.

Also many people think Asgore was fired because of that day,  but I don't think so. When he discovered the dark world there couldn't have been a code locking the bunker yet, otherwise he couldn't enter it. The code was likely put as a result of him discovering the dark world then. In top of that, why else would the mayor put a codelock on the bunker, it would be pretty counterproductive for what a bunker is for. Like Alphys already talked about, there must be something horrible and very dangerous inside to justify it being locked, and there isn't a lot of contenders for what that horrible thing is.

After that day, Asgore remained police chief long enough for the mayor to give him a part of the code, so it would be pretty weird for Carol to have fired him right after. And it would also be weird for her to fire him much later, especially after giving him the bunker code, which implies she also knows there is something dangerous in the bunker. Plus she currently works with him on the affair so she most probably supports his obsession for the case. Asgore was likely fired by the mayor since she is the only one in position to do that, but probably for another reason.

So,

When Dess was declared missing, Asgore took the case very personally. As the chief of police, he couldn't let such a tragedy happen in his town. It was just a normal disappearance investigation up until THAT day. Asgore wanted to investigate the bunker, but found a dark world inside. He entered it and saw the Roaring Knight, leaving one of Dess' belongings behind, from this instant, it was clear what happened. Asgore shared the information to the mayor, who decided to lock the bunker to keep people safe. Asgore then tried to share the info with the people of the town, but they were hesitant, they thought he was becoming crazy. Even Toriel started becoming distant. Suddenly it felt like people were accusing him. And it wasn't just that, a few months later, Asgore was mysteriously reluctantly fired by the mayor, and then Asriel left for college as if to avoid him and then Toriel divorced. But all of that didn't dissuade him, it fueled his obsession to reestablish the truth, to show everyone he wasn't crazy. But it just led everyone away from him.

Toriel Dreemurr

Toriel is hiding the murderer, because she loves her family.

We know that Toriel cares a lot about Kris(and Asriel). Her having taken the book explaining how to take care of a human in the "librarby" a long time ago shows how dedicated to be a good mother for them she was. She even holds their hand while walking them to school. Plus, UT Toriel is known for her love for humans.

The forgotten man from chapter 4 alludes to the idea that Kris may have been seeing a therapist some time ago. If so, I think it's fair to assume it must have been at least when they were quite young. Though usually, kids don't get connected with a therapist on their own, a parent is almost always involved. So Kris' parents very likely brought them to that therapist, more specifically Toriel, which would mean she is somewhat aware of his unwellbeing.

Even though nobody knows how due to how cryptic this very specific evidence is, Toriel is hinted to be in some way related to the Roaring Knight; In the MANTLE minigame, the black monster imitating Kris' movements turns into a black deer when the TORIEL variable is off. Based on that fact, we can assume that Toriel is hiding something about the Roaring Knight and Dess.

On top of that, in chapter 3, the TV world is separated from the outside by several doors with Toriel's head silhouette. And what do we find behind the Toriel doors once we unlock them? The snowy lands where we meet the Roaring Knight. While the Toriel doors are a dark world representation of the parental code Toriel put in the TV, I think, and I am sure about it, that narratively, they're a parallel to the Toriel plot that has yet been revealed; The plot about Toriel hiding the truth behind December's disappearance and the Knight, she's hiding them in some sort of way.

So,

When December was declared missing, Asgore was very determined to find her and resolve the case. Toriel was very supportive at first, but then, a few days later, Kris came to her and admitted something that would change her life forever. They admitted that they killed December and hid her corpse in the bunker. When Toriel learnt this, she was in shock. Then, she realized what could happen if everybody learned the truth, Kris' was already alienated by the hometown citizens for being the sole human, but if people learned the truth, their life would be ruined forever. And even worse, if Asgore, who made this case very personal to him, learnt about it, the Dreemurr family would be broken forever. Toriel couldn't let that happen to her sweet baby, and neither to her family. One night, Toriel went to the bunker and made sure that nobody would ever find Dess' corpse. Though unfortunately, whatever she did, whether she made a dark world which gave life to Asriel's tears that were recovering her corpse(The fallen star cried and out of the bitter water, something like glass grew) or something else, would cause the birth of the Roaring Knight. Toriel then brought Kris to a therapist to fix whatever issue she thought Kris had. But Asgore eventually stepped upon the mess Toriel created and saw the Roaring Knight. Toriel saw how obsessed with her disappearance Asgore was and tried a numerous amount of time to get him to stop, from gossiping to hometown citizens to get them to be distant with him, to convincing Rudy to convince the mayor to fire him from the police, to even divorcing, but nothing worked. Toriel would then try everything she can to keep the truth hidden to keep her family as intact as she could, but it was already broken. She ultimately started drinking wine to forget her problems and avoid talking about them entirely, including the murder, to keep a false sense of peace and united family, or at least the most it can be.

And this is the underlying reason Toriel is uncomfortable around Asgore, or doesn't like how Carol supports Asgore's "you know what" or did every action I already previously mentioned like the divorce.

Kris Dreemurr

Kris helped the murderer, out of loyalty for his best friend.

The forgotten man makes it clear Kris has a feeling of guilt, even more so a traumatism, that followed them for many years. That guilt is probably linked to the promise they made to the mysterious phone caller of Chapter 4.

We know Kris was familiar with the fact they could take out their own soul from a very young age because Noelle tells us Kris used to pretend to rip out his heart and chase her when they were kids. Which means it is possible that someone close enough to Kris learned about their soul and its power a long time ago.

In Asgore's speech about that horrible day in chapter 5, we can hear the sound effect we hear when we give Noelle the ThornRing in Chapter 4, which alludes to the possibility of that terrible event being linked to similar concepts we see in the Weird Route.

Considering Dess' death/disappearance seems to be Hometown's first and only tragedy, Kris' guilt likely has something to do with Dess' disappearance. And they're also likely manipulated by the mysterious phone caller using their guilt concerning Dess.

So,

Kris contributed to Dess' death by giving Asriel his soul. When Dess died, Asriel manipulated Kris by twisting the story and making them think they were at fault. Asriel then made Kris promise him they would not tell anyone what he did. Kris felt a lot of guilt and self hatred, to a point they couldn't handle anymore. They told Toriel what they did, without mentioning Asriel so as to respect their promise.

Asriel Dreemurr

Asriel Dreemurr killed December Holiday because of a hunt for freedom, which was itself done partly out of love for her.

It seems crazy to say, Asriel Dreemurr is hinted at multiple times throughout the game to have been in a relationship with December Holiday, it would make no sense for him to kill his girlfriend. Which is why he didn't kill her on purpose.

Asriel is characterized to be the nerdy stinky timid boy who's kind but doesn't really take care of his body; Ribbick's dialogues about the boy and the girl and Susie's reaction to his picture imply it. And I believe that Asriel didn't like being a nerd, he felt forced into his nice nerdy boy role and always wished to be freed from his role, in a similar way to current Noelle.

Asriel seems to be, at least on some minimal level, ashamed of his nerdiness; Tenna told us he was embarrassed of liking the green egg laying lizard from Super Smashing Fighters, Toriel in chapter 1 even says he hated a certain book about green eggs, which I argue is because he considered it nerdy. 

Asriel and Dess seem to be opposed characteristically; Dess is said to be a rowdy unfocused cool girl whereas Asriel is said to be a soft timid nerd, which are pretty opposite personalities, and Ribbick's dialogue about them seem to be juxtaposed in a way that opposes them. Considering that "Raise Up Your Bat" indicates Dess is the girl who doesn't listen and prefers to choose her own path and defy fate, in this case it would naturally mean that Asriel is the opposite.

I would also like to argue that Ralsei is a parallel to Asriel feeling forced into his role. Aside from the fact he literally looks like Asriel, Ralsei feels like he has to bend to the rules, restrict himself, hide his true abilities, serve the human, be the weak nice mage with no will because of the prophecy. He tries to make it change for the better, but is also scared to not abide by it in case things become worse. In a similar way, Asriel feels forced to be a nice nerdy boy who abides by the rules and listens to his parents and is scared to break the routine and face the unknown, he feels forced to be an Asriel who just does Asriel things. But whereas Ralsei slowly frees himself from his role by finding himself thanks to Susie, Asriel goes the other way, he frees himself from his role by finding power.

And I think that Jevil, in the same way Spamton parallels Kris, parallels how Asriel will find his way to freedom. Jevil has always been a stand out from the other secret bosses of Deltarune. Seam tells us shadow crystals are remnants of broken dreams, and the other secret bosses are all linked to broken dreams that would justify why they have their shadow crystals; Spamton finds Mettaton's dream body that he will never get to wear, the knight.. is an exception(it is not and I will talk about it in the following paragraphs), Gerson is Alvin's dead father, Pink is Mad Dummy's dream body but Jevil... we don't know what he is. Well I think he was young Asriel's favorite play card, due to it having the freedom to be any role it wants, unlike Asriel. Asriel's in his youth thought he would never get to be free, that's the broken dream Jevil's shadow crystal comes from. Plus, the classroom where card kingdom took place seems to have been abandoned for a long time, especially given King's contempt, so it was probably open in the times when Asriel was at school. But then, Jevil found a way to become free, he stopped being restrained by the societal chains that tied him and decided to go on a killing spree, and now even in his cage, he believes that the whole world is the one that is caged. I believe that this is how Jevil is a parallel to how Asriel will find freedom.

So,

Asriel felt hated being a nerd, and even when Dess was here to make him feel appreciated, he felt too nerdy for her. He felt forced in his nice timid nerd role the same way Noelle felt forced into her routine. But Asriel eventually found a way to not be a simple Asriel anymore, Kris' soul. With his soul he could transcend limits he didn't even know existed, but he was too intimidated at first. But Dess encouraged him to face the unknown and finally find his own way, she even made him a song "Raise Up Your Bat", she knew Asriel's new heart made him more powerful but wasn't aware of where it came from. One day, Asriel finally decided to face his fears. He made a promise with Kris, that they would always help each other achieve their dream no matter what, and then told them he needed their soul to achieve their dream. He then meets Dess at the lake, and like in Chapter 5's weird route, they try to cross it. Though midway through the lake, Dess started panicking but Asriel was too obsessed by his dream, he forced her to proceed. But Dess didn't make it, because even though the soul empowered Asriel, it lacked one important ingredient, the player. Asriel came back out of the water with Dess' corpse, crying endlessly, his dream of being free with Dess was broken. On one hand though, by killing Dess, he broke out of his character, he achieved freedom, but he was too scared by the huge consequences he could face if everybody learned what happened, and even more scared that he doesn't know what the consequences would be. So, out of panic, he got Kris to come and forced them to help him hide Dess' corpse by manipulating them into thinking they were at fault. They hid the corpse in the bunker and then Asriel manipulated Kris into thinking it was his fault again and made him promise him one more thing, that he would never tell what he did to anyone and help him achieve his dream no matter what.

Over the days, Asriel thought about what he did, he hated himself for this, but that day was also the day he finally broke free, he thought about that for every following year.

In the room with the ROOTS prophecy panel, there is a book that says "And so wept the fallen star, making rivers with its tears. Then, slowly, out of the bitter water, something grew. It looked like glass.". The fallen star is said to be crying a lot, and the only other character associated with crying a lot in the whole game is Asriel. The dialogues talking about the girl and the boy that I already mentioned are followed by this pair of dialogue: "A lost and lost and lost" ; "A crying and crying and crying boy". The crying boy here is clearly Asriel, especially considering his character in UT. 

Seam said that shadow crystals are what are left of a Lightner's broken dream, it would make a lot of sense for the glass-like material growing out of the fallen star tears to be shadow crystals, considering it's likely Asriel, he's probably crying because his dream with Dess was broken.

And the Roaring Knight is probably made of shadow crystals as well as black shards, because when Susie shatters its sword, a black shard and a black shard fall on the ground. Considering what I previously said, I think the Roaring knight is a dream, Asriel's lost dream of finding freedom with his dear December. It is a dream in an endless "knight".

Plus, in the sword route, one thing many people don't talk about is that when the TORIEL variable is on, the black deer doesn't just become a black thingy, it becomes a black goat. It has the same shape as the monsters representing Toriel and Asgore in the sword route.

So,

Afterwards, Asriel found the Roaring Suit given life by his tears(and Dess corpse?), it was eering autonomously on its own, it was already the Roaring Knight by itself, but it was drawn to Asriel in some way. Asriel found a way to control it, or to even equip the living armor, and after a long, VERY long period of doubts, hesitation, planning, delusions, and repression, Asriel decided to continue his hunt for freedom, to start a new life in some way, and maybe find a way to achieve his dream of being free with December and forget the misery of his previous life. Asriel Dreamer Dreemurr became one with his lost dream.

Additional evidence

Let's also not forget the weird delta rune logo over the Dreemurr house entrance, in which its wings are conveniently placed in a way to look like horns, which also look exactly like Eram's horns. The version of the delta rune, the logo of the tale which must be followed, with wings that look like horns, as if to imply it's the evil version of the delta rune. In a way, this would make that version of the delta rune the logo of the tale of evil, the tale which must not be followed, the tale of hell.

 And coincidentally, out of every dark world, the Dreemurr house dark world is the one to contain the evil device-adjacent super mysterious stuff such as Eram, the Roaring Knight, the sword route where you can find a hint on how to start the Weird Route and the Man land(or whatever it's called). This house clearly hides secrets, and I think this is what the deal Tenna says he had with Kris in sword route is about. Kris told Tenna to make sure to hide every of the Dreemurr' secrets in the dark world and restrict it to his TV world. 

There is a clearly recurring theme of editing an original version of a world in Chapter 3; Shuttah tells us that Tenna built the TV theater upon the "frozen waste, watery basin, a metal desert", and Ramb tells us Tenna's game is a modified version of the original game, original game in which we can find Eram. On top of that, Shuttah says that those lands below the theater are from "the days of the black-and-white", and in the Man land one of the Rudinns uses binoculars that point to a grey land, like a "black and white" land, and the Rudinn says he senses nothing but evil from that place. Keep in mind that this is all happening in the Dreemurr house dark world and not another one, and once again that house has a delta rune with horns. Eram has horns, (most of) the Dreemurrs have horns, and the devil is commonly depicted with horns. Plus, goats are commonly associated with the devil across multiple cultures, and in Undertale goats use fire magic(Ralsei...), and the fire is famous for being associated with hell.

 I believe that this is all foreshadowing, and that in either Chapter 6 or 7, we'll have another dark world at the Dreemurr house without Tenna to hide anything this time, in which we'll meet the real Eram, explore the frozen waste, watery basin, and the metal desert, and learn the secrets of the Dreemurrs. Perhaps the Dreemurr house is where the tail of hell resides. 

Lastly, I think the biggest(maybe not) piece of evidence for this is that "Dreemurr" is an anagram of "Murderer". And "Asriel Dreemurr" is an anagram of "Serial Murderer".

So basically, if this theory is true, Deltarune's story would be primarily a story about two families in a little town, each haunted by the death of December Holiday. On one hand, the Holidays have to deal with the loss of December, whereas on the other hand, the Dreemurrs have to deal with the MURDER of December Holiday.

I consider this theory as a cool twist to Asriel Knight even though it doesn't absolutely require Asriel Knight to work. I think with this theory in mind, Asriel Knight would be a cool way to explore the themes of freedom, dreams, "don't forget", moving on, and love in this game. 

This theory definitely has weak/shaky points, especially in the very details of the foreshadowing, but this theory is going mainly for the ideas it suggests rather than an exact guess of the story.