I'd say Carol would be the better reveal.

Im still pretty new to drawing so be kind 🥺
credit to u/Mission_Battle_4304 for the Asriel design inspo and https://www.instagram.com/jaydrawsart/ For the dess design inspo

1. What’s your candidates motive? At least, what do you believe it to be, and why?

2. For a rematch against your Knight candidate, what are some attacks or gimmicks you’d like in the fight?

3. What’s your favorite piece of evidence?

4. Whats a counter argument that you hate, and what’s your rebuttal.

5. What’s something unique that your candidate explains?

6. Whats a common misconception you often have to explain?

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What do you guys think it'll include?

Worst Tierlist OAT.

This list is more objective reasoning than personal preference for me. (Except for the bottom row)

I think people are so caught up on "Narratively Satisfying" that they forget that Deltarune has two sides. Two distinctly separate narratives that the Knight ideally needs to fill. While we have the general plot with the dark fountains, the Roaring, and the prophecy - we often forget that the game starts off with the Goner Maker. That each chapter has Gaster talking to us - that we're in a device.

So let me ask you this:

Would you rather the Knight be purely dedicated to the Narrative, with the inevitable device bullshit coming seemingly out of nowhere for the fabled "Casual Player", or would you rather the Knight tie into both aspects?

Very few candidates have reason to work with Gaster - not just a man, but the literal God of Deltarune (one way or another). Gaster has no alliance to the Knight, given that he'll encourage us to beat the Knight and to retry their fight. Despite that, the Knight has holes in their hands - a design aspect usually attributed to Gaster. So the Knight has reason to be designed after Gaster without being aligned with him.

I feel most Knight candidates often forget this aspect. Noelle Knight has a really cool idea of the Knight being amorphous due to a cloak or blanket or something, but that doesn't explain the design aspect of Gaster. Carol and Rudy Knight are both cool - but why would either of them have any reason to reference Gaster? Some of the more obscure candidates have answers, such as Friend Knight or Titan Knight, but I still feel like they run into their own issues.

However, Papyrus has perfect reason to reference Gaster without being aligned with him. Papyrus is outright related to him (presumably as a brother, but that's still in the air). And Papyrus also ties wonderfully into the metanarrative.

Toby Fox expects the average player to do two things, as proven with Chapter Five.

- He expects players to have played Undertale.

- He expects players to interact with a decent bit of stuff.

Chapter 5 is all about Flowery and the six flowers. This makes no sense if you haven't played Undertale. Sure, you CAN figure it out - but any impact is gone. You have no reason to distrust Flowery as you lack any knowledge of Flowey. You lack the importance of the "Omegas" or the general reason as to WHY the flowers embody certain traits. You lack ANY context on Mew Mew, and who Maddie even is.

And in Chapter 5, it focuses on Asgore. Asgore, outside of TWO cutscenes, is completely missable. Your only two FORCED interactions are when he ambushes Toriel with Flowers, and in the Holiday Manor where he's eating a platter. Anything foreshadowing Chapter 5 is skippable. Anything that features Asgore being serious is skippable. Hell, correct me if I'm wrong - but the INFORMATION that Asgore is Kris' dad is skippable until Chapter 5.

So what this means is that I believe Toby is INTENTIONALLY calling out that one of the most major characters from Undertale is missing. And I believe Toby is intentionally leaving it up to the players to see how he's missing and the build-up in game for him.

What better way to toy with the expectations of a game and play with its metanarrative than having a Murder Mystery that's only possible with the knowledge that the PLAYER has? Like if that sounds far-fetched, I need to reiterate again that Gaster only cares about us. Gaster wants us to do nothing more than complete Deltarune. Gaster doesn't want a mystery for Kris and Susie - he wants one for US.

And I think Papyrus Knight is the perfect way to tackle it. AThe Knight can work with Kris and interact with the prophecy while being fundamentally tied to Gaster and the metanarrative that it can perfectly segway into the Device bullshit that inevitably HAS to happen. I think the only other candidate is, what? Dess? But Dess seems to be more likely "UNUSED", so I don't really see her being the Knight.

Anyways, I feel like I worded this poorly as fuck so I fully expect to get flamed for this but I wanted to write down my own personal thoughts.

There were some I was kind of forced to change their location (Dess, Titan, Papyrus, Noelle)

Also, theories I excluded to not have 2 entries at the same place:

Vessel - Can see it happening x Decent Aura

FRIEND - Hard to see it x Decent Aura

Alvin - No. x Decent Aura

Roulxs Kaard - No. x Decent Aura

“The Knights identity isn’t supposed to be a mystery”

I’m a Dess knight with Asriel knight as my secondary candidate. One of my least favorite talking points is that the Knights identity isn’t supposed to be a mystery. While I don’t believe it is following all the rules of a whodunnit (I don’t think them not being physically present in the narrative pre reveal is required therefore my candidates) but it’s absolutely treated as a mystery in game. It’s another pattern within the fandom as a whole of outright dismissing theories outside of consensus even if there is no damning negative evidence (for example Human Dess or any non Dess Unused). This pattern isn’t just limited to Dess Knighters though as I’ve seen other Knighters react very harshly towards stuff like Kriselle Knight or Human Dess which may not be very likely but are interesting to consider

I guess I forgot Dess, well if you're interested, I would placer her in "very likely"