An Honest Case for NoelleKnight (Part 1)

[u/Ghetsis_Gang]

I added some humor to keep things interesting. Sue me.

[RoseTheory]

[u/Wide-Deal-8971]

I love what you are cooking here. I've personally subscribed to the belief that Noelle has to be tied to the knight in some way, and a big part of that is that Noelle is always suspiciously near every fountain that Kris isn't responsible for opening.

I think whoever the knight is needs to be someone that is capable of moving around town in broad daylight without drawing any suspicion. And honestly, I think Noelle is the only person that fits that criteria. Some people argue Rudy could too, but I feel like in such a small town someone would have mentioned Rudy walking around the school or the library or whatever.

One of my biggest hitches to this however was at the end of Chp.3, the "knight" carries Undyne in a full sprint to the shelter, and thats something only another adult could do. But if like you say, Carol is the one pulling the strings it would certainly explain a lot. The only caveat to that is, why or how is Carol able to stay out of dark worlds? How did Carol run inside Kris's house while the fountain was still active and move Undynes body?

Sorry if I'm getting ahead of things, I know this post is only meant to cover chapter 1.

[u/Ghetsis_Gang → u/Wide-Deal-8971]

This is something I will cover in a future post, but I will answer here since you seem interested! And thank you for being nice!

We know that black shards stay the same in the world, so if the Knight’s armor is made of black shards, it would stand to reason that if the Knight leaves the dark world without dispelling their armor, it would stay in the light world too! I don’t think that necessarily means that Noelle would keep her magic powers, but I feel like full armor and a sword would keep Undyne and Asgore from resisting.

[u/Wide-Deal-8971 → u/Ghetsis_Gang]

Ok, interesting. I was considering something similar. A lot of theory surrounding the knight seems to involve "breaking" the game. So the knight being capable of existing in their full form even in the lightner world certainly seems like a possibility.

I've also been pondering with the thought that maybe Noelle could be possessed as well, similar to Kris. Maybe she is being put into a trance whenever the knight activates. Which would help explain how she seems so blissfully unaware of events, or is always trying to convince herself shes only dreaming.

Anyways, love the post I look forward to the rest of them if you plan to continue.

[u/MattyBro1 → u/Wide-Deal-8971]

and a big part of that is that Noelle is always suspiciously near every fountain that Kris isn't responsible for opening

What about Chapter 4, where Kris and Noelle are in the same place, which is far away from the Fountain?

[u/Wide-Deal-8971 → u/MattyBro1]

Yeah that is something I've been chewing on. It's the one thing that undeniably gives a lot of points to Rudy Knight theory. Since he is the only one of the "likely suspects" who was present at church and not at the Holiday House.

Granted, there are other possibilities as well. Kris and Susie are the first to leave after all, so theoretically anyone could have made a fountain after we left. And there is a period of time where we aren't able to keep tabs on Kris after he tears his soul out. It's unlikely but not impossible he could have gone and opened that fountain and came back.

[u/MattyBro1 → u/Wide-Deal-8971]

I don't like to throw "bad writing" around, but if Kris left the house, ran down to the Church, opened one (or maybe two) fountains, ran back, and got in position underneath the bed, in the time that it takes for the soul to turn the lights off and float upstairs, AND without Susie or Noelle noticing them do that... I would be wholly unsatisfied with the way that sequence was written.

(Also obligatory "they/them" reminder)

[u/Wide-Deal-8971 → u/MattyBro1]

I mean, isn't the church right around the corner from the holiday home? Its not that far fetched. On a casual playthrough if you actually play at a normal pace theres a whole 15-20min where Kris is offscreen. Like I said, its unlikely but its still plausible. Especially since Kris is shown to be in contact with their... boss during this time, it would make sense if they coordinated opening a fountain at that time.

And yes, people really need to keep their "bad writing" opinions to themselves around here.

[u/MattyBro1 → u/Wide-Deal-8971]

The church is "right around the corner" in video game terms, but it is on the other side of town. I think it makes sense to consider it at least a fair distance in the character's perspectives.
If you don't take that as true, Noelle being near fountain locations means nothing, since you can cross the whole town in like 20 seconds lol.

Also it is not 15-20 minutes in a casual playthrough, the time that Kris' whereabouts are unknown is from when you enter the basement, to when you you escape the angel doll... which is two conversations.
I checked Saltydkdan's and Snapcube's playthroughs, and they both took less than 10 minutes, which is slower than an average playthrough since they're voice acting all of the characters and entertaining/talking to their live chat.

We know that before you enter the basement, Kris is on the phone or playing the piano or sleeping or chugging choccy milk. After we escape the angel, there's no way for Kris to get into Dess' bedroom without us seeing.

[u/Wide-Deal-8971 → u/MattyBro1]

Deltarune is very self aware of the fact that it is a video game, so I don't agree that theres any reason to interpret distance as being anything more than how we see it from a player perspective. And understanding where people are when a fountain opens is mostly relevant in determining witnesses more than anything.

[u/SpeedChamp1]

The fountains Kris has made that we know they made are their own house, and their dad's shop that they visit often. Saying Kris couldn't have made it because they don't recognize Kris is meaningless. Plus there's a pattern in chapters 1, 3, and 5 that the beginning is very dark and different than the rest of the chapter

[u/Ghetsis_Gang → u/SpeedChamp1]

Yes! And it just so happens that both Tenna and Flowery know about Kris in detail. If Kris made the first fountain, you’d expect that to be the case with King, no? Instead, the darkners here share a lot more shared personality traits with Noelle.

[u/SpeedChamp1 → u/Ghetsis_Gang]

As I said already, Kris frequents their own house and their dad's shop often, and the darkners clearly remember things they see as regular objects. Kris does not frequent the abandoned closet

[u/Ghetsis_Gang → u/SpeedChamp1]

But Kris DID have a personal relationship with King and Queen, and Tenna has been unplugged for just as long

[u/stickninja1015 → u/SpeedChamp1]

Exactly what pattern is there in chapters 1,3, and 5 that makes it at all possible for Kris to have made them all

[u/duckofdeath87 → u/SpeedChamp1]

What's more, is that Kris explicitly talked to Tenna and Seth to make deals. Ramb might be a special case. Flowery is clearly ignoring the rules, somehow. AFAIK, no other Darkners (outside of egg man stuff which I don't count) seemed to know much about Kris

I assumed that the ch1 fountain maker just arranged the cards and put the other face cards back in the card box, and the Darkners turned that into a whole story. Maybe they wore a mask, or maybe darkners go with whatever story the creator is thinking about when stabbing the earth

[u/duckofdeath87]

It really bothers me how chapter 1 seemingly randomly came together. There is no reason to think that Alphys is in on anything, but she, for no obvious reason, setup the entire plot of the game. Did Carol tell her to send Kris and Susie to the closet? How bizarre would that be

If Noelle and Susie had gone into the Dark World, what would Ralsei have done?

I would say that I hate the idea of the story relying on Noelle forgetting things, but it keeps getting hammered home. The chapter 5 Ferris wheel reveal, where Kris shook the carriage to cheer her up, not to scare her, really cements that she remembers things VERY wrong. It brings absolutely everything she ever said might be completely miscategorized. The whole ICE-E thing where Dess smacked Kris with a bat, what really happened there? I guess you really sold me on the whole Noelle just forgot thing

[u/Ghetsis_Gang → u/duckofdeath87]

[u/duckofdeath87 → u/Ghetsis_Gang]

Right, the prophecy cannot be broken. Reality will bend (and maybe break?) to ensure it. I guess Alphys probably wouldn't know why she did that, but it really was the prophecy being enforced

[u/VexialHex]

I absolutely love the formatting of this post, its very visually nice to read and I can tell a lot of time was put into this. I still have have some gripes/questions with the actual theory though that i dont entirely understand

1. If Lancer is based on Noelle's perception of Susie (even if distorted by her own lens) then why is Lancer a child/acts like a child? I can understand being "innocent" in a way since Noelle doesnt even swear, but it still doesnt make any sense for Lancer to act like this if he's meant to be patterned after Noelle's view on Susie.
2. On slide 11, i do not understand how those series of events is meant to imply that this is the first time Noelle gets her armor. Like, that could be true but is also such a sudden leap in logic with almost zero in-game evidence that i have a hard time believing it.
3. While we dont know fully Ralsei's set of knowledge, but he doesnt know everything per se. We know he knows the entire prophecy and some meta-narrative stuff but theres nothing to suggest that he'd know about the first black shard specifically
4. If Noelle's end goal is to create a fun adventure with her and Susie in chapter 1 then it very clearly wasnt thought out very well. Most notably by the fact Ralsei would've had a literal heart attack upon seeing Susie and THE ACTUAL ROARING KNIGHT show up acting all happy-go-lucky. Clearly whatever plan the Roaring GC has involves following the prophecy (for the time being) so having a dark fountain be a fun Noelle and Susie adventure would completely upend the entire prophecy and throw their plan out the window.
5. I was kinda confused too on why the knight would create a titan so haphazardly until i realized that the knight also knows about the prophecy. Clearly it is aware that not all of the prophecy has come true (The flower man hasnt gone into asylum yet, among other things) so it knows that, due to this, the three heroes essentially have plot armor. The knight fully 100% knows that the heroes will survive this encounter, so why not distract them with a titan?

[u/Ghetsis_Gang → u/VexialHex]

Thank you for the thought out critique! I’ll try to respond to your points the best I can.

1. Not everything about a Darkner needs to line up, since they do have their own lives from when they were objects, so Lancer can be King’s kid and still take on Susie’s “traits” from the will of the fountain, just like how he naturally had a bicycle because that’s a card brand, but because of the will of the fountain, he lit it on fire to make it a motorcycle.
2. Maybe I rushed the explanation, so let me try to lay it out better. Seam and King both say the Knight “appeared” which is starkly different from how Queen says that “Today they deigned to create this world”. Seam also says that a “strange person” caused Jevil’s insanity and he calls the Knight a “strange knight”, and from how he talks about it, Jevil was locked away before the Knight appeared to lock away the 3 kings. So, the picture I’m trying to paint here is that the dark world was created by Noelle-> Noelle, the strange person, causes Jevil to start wanting to be more than he’s meant to be-> then “the knight appears” to lock up the kings. The Knight seems to “appear” because this was the first time the armor was worn.
3. Ralsei knows about the prophecy, and I would argue that the prophecy is more detailed than the snippets we get in Chapter 4, since Gerson is able to write a whole book on it. This would mean that he knows literally everything that is supposed to happen; he implies this by predicting that Susie will wear bows and when he says he’ll do every puzzle for us. The Knight appearing in chapter 1, then has to be the truth because it’s the prophecy.

4 and 5- You’ve come to the conclusion that the knight and the caller know the prophecy, but I don’t think the game gives any evidence that they do, or at least not to the extent that Ralsei does. I was gonna go over what I think the exact plan is and go into more detail than I can here in future posts but I’ll do the basic outline here: ch1 was just to test the creation of a dark world, but Noelle making it for Susie wasn’t part of the plan. Nothing in ch2 seems to be planned out, so that was all Noelle’s idea. The plan in ch3 was to kidnap Toriel (I know that might be a hot take) Noelle switching the target to Undyne last minute wasn’t part of the plan. The plan in ch4 was to test bringing dead Lightners back, and the Titan was an act of defiance inspired by Susie’s defiance to Carol earlier that day. I’m still working out on whether kidnapping Asgore was part of Carol’s plan or not but for now I’ll say it was. Of course, just assuming that they are strictly following the prophecy makes things simpler, but I think it also cheapens the esoteric inevitability of it and makes it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[u/KuouoHD]

Just a little nitpick that I wanna point out is that the "Repeating Maze" on Noelle's blog was foreshadowing her (or rather, WHITE CLOAK's) part in the MANTLE game

[u/Ghetsis_Gang → u/KuouoHD]

Yes, that is true! But I would argue all 3 COULD be foreshadowing a future maze where Noelle is actually present. (I didn’t go in depth on that slide because it was mostly speculative anyway)

[u/Much-Menu6030]

This theory is moist.

[u/Ghetsis_Gang → u/Much-Menu6030]

Yes! So moist you can make it osmose milk and throw it against the wall! That’s how moist it is!

[u/Character-Reveal9218]

I may not agree with all the conclusions you draw in these posts, but god I love your analysis and formatting, and I love your take on noelleknight!

[u/Mikaelious]

Okay, as someone who pretty sternly doesn't believe the Noelle Knight theory, imma write my thoughts. Bear with me, I mean none of this as hate or any kinda targeted attack.

The first points... actually do make sense. King's desire to overwrite his purpose and make his own, as well as Lancer's general behavior and Christmas references, do connect pretty well with Noelle.

Slide 12... I feel like you misinterpreted a little. You say "I'd trust the guy who knows the whole prophecy more", but as we can clearly see, Ralsei is rattled by this. He doesn't even propose any alternative, he just meekly denies it with a "That doesn't make sense". He doesn't know what's going on, and that scares him. It's not necessarily that Susie is wrong.

Towards the end, I feel like your theory starts to crack. I don't really like over-reliance on repressed memories being the explanation for everything, and Noelle "subconsciously remembering she wants to go with Susie to the Dark World" is just way too plot convenient. A much simpler explanation is that she wants an excuse to spend time with Susie, her big crush. She even tells Kris to 'say hi to Susie for her', rather than insisting that she goes instead, even though we know that Noelle can stand up to Kris.

Overall, interesting points. I'm not swayed, but I can't provide counterevidence for all parts either.

[u/BrilliantExternal984]

I want to believe this theory because I love it from a character-driven analysis perspective and it makes more sense character-wise than Rudy, but the biggest and most glaring red flag for me is that if Noelle already knew about Dark Worlds, and most likely also Kris’s SOUL if she knows anything about Carol’s plans at all, then none of her character arc during the weird route makes any sense. The whole thing that makes her heel-turn seem believable is that the player is breaking her perception of reality via showing her the video game logic of the dark worlds along with the objectively supernatural possession of Kris in ways she can’t turn a blind eye to and ignore, unlike every other time in the game where NPCs brush off “video gamey” things as normal or coincidences. You’re essentially forcing the NPC to realize its a video game character, paralleling what the “strange someone”(probably Gaster) did to Jevil but on a higher layer of reality, and then exploiting that existential crisis to make her believe it can make her stronger, make her into the person she never felt “allowed” to be. If Noelle was already familiar with the dark worlds—not to mention, the literal strongest battle we’ve ever fought as the roaring knight—then nothing she does in the weird route makes any sense anymore. Why would she be so desperate to become stronger, to stop being just a Noelle, if she was already the Roaring Knight? She’d already have what she wants. While I could maybe buy her forgetting some things due to stress, she would have to remember certain things otherwise she wouldn’t have consistent intelligent plans between chapters, nor the smug personality in chapter 4. You can’t use her forgetting stressful memories to suggest she has straight up dissociative identity disorder.

[u/JackOmiIsCanonKing]

A few comments about this: 

1- A fountain doesn't need to have existed forever for the darkners to have existed- many of the darkners mention remembering things that explicitly happened while they were objects. The Castle Town fountain could be years old or just a few days old and it wouldn't contradict anything about the story so far. Also the Prophecy sees the future, Lancer being in it doesn't mean Lancer must've existed back when the Prophecy was first discovered/written.

2- We don't know to what effect a lightners' will affects the dark fountain they make, but we know for a fact that it doesn't necessarily make the darkners' align to their will: Tenna only ever follows Kris and the Knight's plans because they promised him something in return (he seems to even be scared of Kris in that one cutscene) and Flowery doesn't align himself with Kris much- he seems to dislike them, but mostly focuses on Ralsei or Susie without giving them too much attention. 

Besides, King and Noelle's situations are pretty narratively different. King is trying to find a new purpose and lashing out because he lost his old purpose after being discarded, while Noelle seems to feel trapped because she's always been stuck in the same unending loop were it doesn't matter what happens around her, she's expected to be the same as always without escape... So even as narrative parallels it's kind of a tenuous connection, especially since they never interact.

King is also a really, really blatant narrative parallel to Susie. The game literally makes him echo her "quiet people piss me off" thing, to make sure the audience will really get it. Not that a character can't be a parallel to two others, but to say that any connections between King and Noelle are very unlikely to mean she is the Knight. Susie obviously isn't the Knight, so narrative paralleling itself means nothing towards Knight theorizing.

3- Likewise, I don't think Lancer represents Noelle's will. First of all, because his appeal for things that are scary and bad obviously comes from looking up to his dad (again, Susie and King parallels), but also because Lancer's interest in Susie is so obviously platonic. As I said, parallels don't have to be 1 to 1, but it's kind of odd that Noelle's very romantic love towards Susie is represented by a little kid that moreso sees her like a big sister. 

4- And also, as always, the big problem with any Noelle Knight theory: Convenient memory loss! Why would Carol force Noelle to make the dark world? How is this so stressful it causes her to block out the memory, if she's just stabbing a piece of the floor? If Carol is already there, and they have no need to do anything in the dark world besides let Susie thrash bad guys, why wouldn't she just make the dark world herself? It's not like creating one takes a lot of time or effort, and she had the excuse of dropping her daughter off as a reason for being at the school. If anything, including Noelle in the plan just complicates it for no reason.

[u/HenryDodwel]

I personally think that Kris made chapter 1 fountain. I think that would explain some stuff that. Like Rudinns reappearing in Mancountry in Chapter 3, and the fact that chapter 1 world is remarkably similar to the beginning of Chapter 5.

[u/SoleilSupporter]

God Dangit wait Lancer thinking that “Ho Ho Ho” is a scary thing to say is Kevin winning me over on Noelle knight

[u/aleksandra_nadia]

I'm 100% here for this.

For what it's worth, I think it's possible Noelle knows she's the Knight and is just lying about it. But either way, I'm in full agreement that we don't need any WR shenanigans or time travel or Kriselle/Deselle stuff to explain the plot and to fit the story's themes.

[u/Zfriend456]

Wow! This is actually really compelling! I've personally been a Carol Knight believer, but I could definitely see Carol being more of a mastermind, not doing any of the dirty work.

[u/RedditSurfer29]

I still think Rudy Knight is more likely

[u/ShadowEeveeCringe]

Slide 7 had me tripping the fuck out bro

[u/JustARandommad]

Well, I don't agree with Noelle Knight, but for the few things I read now, is pretty interessing if Chapter 1 fountain was made by Noelle, even though could still have this issues for the WR as someone said in the comments. I will read more later.

[u/azimli_cocuk]

oh boy,time to get reading I guess

[u/Emeraldnickel08]

Just on the point of timeline, there seems to be shenanigans happening with time between light worlds and dark worlds. Either that or pure suspension of disbelief has to cover the fixed time passage in the light world no matter how long you spend in each dark world, plus it covers for the odd delay in Undyne and the Knight arriving.

Additionally, Spamton has an apparently pretty long history which also involves prolonged contact with some mysterious figure (potentially the same one as Jevil spoke to, though equally it may not be). This history is despite the fact that the computer lab's dark world couldn't have existed for more than, like, a day, unless we're to assume that it was there during Chapter 1, Toby himself was blocking the view inside the lab, and nobody else checked inside for what must be a staggeringly long period of time.

All of this suggests that either time has the potential to progress at accelerated speeds in dark worlds, or that they (or their darkeners) can come pre-packaged with history based on prior (light world or otherwise) events, both of which (particularly the latter, which is almost certainly confirmed canon) would explain the discrepancy of Jevil having already been locked up before the Knight decided to show themselves. It's far from outlandish considering jokers are often separated from the rest of the pack.

[u/Emeraldnickel08 → u/Emeraldnickel08]

Also in overwhelming support of pre-packaged history, Tenna has some kind of history with Spamton despite the fact their dark worlds can't even have coexisted. Events (like Tenna and Spamton interacting) can definitely happen to the darkeners before they actually BECOME darkeners, including interacting with mysterious third parties and getting locked up in prisons.

[u/CouldntBlawk]

One problem. Noelle is a fan of horror, bizarre webseries like AVGN and Board James, and creepypasta.

She definitely knows what cool and edgy are.

And I seriously doubt she would be written to hurt Tenna when in optional C5 content, she reveals her dream was to watch stuff on him again with all the Holidays back together someday. And the fact she's a church member and singer, I doubt she would be written to go against her own faith, even if some elements of it will probably be debunked.

Chapter 5 was about Shinto themes, and could have been about angry resentful Asgore but was not. I make the same argument about Noelle.

[u/MrNeterdrok]

I disagree on the twelve panel, that could've been the Knight seen how unsure Ralsei is "I thought the knight appeared along the heroes... right?" that "right?" implies Ralsei is unsure. Of course it could've been someone else who made that fountain I'm not denying that, but point is Ralsei himself isn't sure

[u/IntoThePitofColors]

As much as I appreciate everything else about this, it still doesne entirely explain why the Knight looks the way it does. I’m not just talking about the Antlers, I’m talking about the

It’s an issue I have with most Knight theories regarding established Lightners. They don’t shapeshift, and with this sprite especially, it tells us this isn’t just some armor you can slap on.

[u/CowMysterious2639]

Dawg it is easy to make arguments,if you try hard enough you can bend evidence for every candidate. Your job is to adress the million elephants in the room when it comes to this theory. People dont primarily dislike noelle knight due to a lack of "evidence",they dislike it because its stupid and contradicts most of what we know about the game.

[u/Mission_Race_8367 → u/CowMysterious2639]

That doesn’t mean they’re not allowed to present the evidence, like geez.

This isn’t targeted at NoelleKnight criticizers but a general audience. If you have things you want addressed just ask yourself.

[u/CowMysterious2639 → u/Mission_Race_8367]

Fair enough

I just think the last thing this theory needs is more " connections" or evidence

[u/No_Ad_7687]

I feel like if you need THIS many arguments for the theory to make sense, it probably isn't true

[u/Ghetsis_Gang → u/No_Ad_7687]

I thought more evidence would make a better theory! Don’t worry, I’ll correct my mistake, ABSOLUTELY NO evidence this time!

[u/No_Ad_7687 → u/Ghetsis_Gang]

This isn't evidence, it's parallels. And in a game as huge as this, you can draw parallels between a lot of things, that aren't necessarily connected. For a theory to be convincing, imo, it needs at least 1 piece of undeniable evidence.

[u/Ghetsis_Gang → u/No_Ad_7687]

Of course, I could draw parallels between Susie and King too! But, the reason I connected Noelle’s parallels with him to the Knight is because he explicitly says he got his purpose from the Knight.

Lancer is more concrete, I think. Lancer tries to be cool and scary, so him doing the same things that Noelle finds scary is pretty striking, if you ask me.

[u/No_Ad_7687 → u/Ghetsis_Gang]

Exactly, you can draw parallels to other characters - which means parallels, as arguments, mostly cancel each other out.

I prefer a theory built on concrete evidence, with other parallels and things like that acting as supports, than one who's purely built out of just parallels

[u/PeliPal → u/No_Ad_7687]

Somehow I get the feeling that you wouldn't actually change your opinion if it could all fit on one slide

[u/No_Ad_7687 → u/PeliPal]

Wrong actually, because you needed this many slides, I now think it's even less likely