Thread by @cybsqd

#DELTARUNE #DeltaruneChapter2 #DeltaruneChapter2Spoilers

Hey, so I was thinking more about Deltarune lore and the purpose of Determination and Dark Fountains, and I think I just hit on something significant.

This is a continuation of my theory from last week.

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https://twitter.com/cybsqd/status/1450995167222132739

I think there's some merit to what Ralsei is saying, about what happens if Dark Fountains engulf the entire world. The crux of my thinking lies specifically with what happens when you use the Shadow Crystals (see screenshots, credit u/Liny_An on Reddit). (1/

We know Jevil was driven mad by being shown the 'reality' of his world. If we combine that with the fact that Dark Fountains are the process of making fiction real, and the Shadow Crystals let you see 'through' the Dark Fountain, we start to get some concerning implications. (2/

Let's critically examine some things. Kris's swords are pencils. The 'CD Bagels' are literally just CDs. Nothing meaningfully or materially changes when you act in a Dark World, and you perceive simple objects to be things other than what they are. (3/

Nothing that happens in the Dark World is REAL. The Roaring isn't a literal 'end of the world'. What ends the world is that, by engulfing the world in Dark Fountains, you are creating a sort of stasis, where the world stops growing and changing. Mankind is lost to fiction. (4/

This isn't dissimilar from the kinds of themes that Evangelion 3.0 (and Evangelion as a whole) tries to discuss: by indulging in excessive escapism as a society, you arrest any development of that society into the future. (5/

Additionally, if the whole world falls to a physical manifestation of escapism, you no longer have a 'real world' or 'real experiences' to draw inspiration from for fiction. The Darkners all turning to stone, leaving the Lightners stranded in a world of nothing. (6/

The Titans that come forth from the Dark Fountains are, then, a literal representation of a world frozen in time, lost to escapism forever, never moving forwards or backwards. The oppressive nothingness of a world that prefers fiction to reality. (7/

Ralsei compelling you to recruit Darkners and bring them to the Castle Town can be read then as I read it in the original thread, representative of a sort of obsessive fan appropriation and twisting of ideas, OR. It could be read as something else. Something better. (8/

Instead of indulging in a world forever, losing oneself to escapism, you 'recruit' aspects of it into yourself. You take parts of every story you read, play, or watch, and keep them close. Humans are a social species, and stories make up how we contextualize reality. (9/

Ralsei, then, may not be a malignant force trying to weave all stories into one, but representative of player-as-reader, who consumes many works and uses them as a context to talk about their own reality. This would explain why the Castle Town takes the name of the player. (10/

However, if we accept this reading, the fact in the Light World the Shadow Crystals let Kris see through their own hand / see into a world where Susie is still a friendless bully has some concerning implications. I will leave that to be explored another day. (11/11)

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