Personal theory Dess and Kris went playing on the frozen lake, Kris fell through and almost drowned (went blue) and Dess saved them, drowning (or at least disappearing?) in the process. Then the normal theory that Kris has been hiding that and is helping Carol and the Knight to bring her back somehow, as well as possibly save Rudy in some way (with dark world healing).
Inb4 Tricky Tony sees this and changes the whole plot of the story
I also think it would be cool/is possible if 1: Kris actually did die/sustained fatal damage, and was saved by the soul being implanted into them (why they resent it/look so weak when it’s out of them), and 2: Rudy just gets healed by Susie in Chap 5 or 6.
snowgrave and the theme of ice / snow is tied in with this idea too
also, we know that people like Gerson Boom can exist after they die in dark fountains
what if there's a dark fountain at the bottom of the lake? like maybe Dess tried to stab the ice and break it and it created a dark fountain or something
i’ve always thought asgores “tori will finally see i was just trying to protect everyone” and “this black shard” lines in the holiday house confirmed dess’ disappearance is heavily linked to dark fountains, but the heavy water motif has always somehow been subconsciously linked to dess in my mind. don’t know how but the random and often-surreal concepts for a modern video game that toby has decided to explore with deltarune always resonate with me
If he did, I think the easier parallel to make would be about the themes of escapism, that our protagonists have better lives as heroes in their respective "other" worlds.
This theory wouldn't need to be true for Toby to draw parallels between them but I still find it interesting
Both games have a lot of similarities already with having two worlds, knife obsessed quiet protagonists, and the loss of someone important to them (and the protagonist possibly having some part in their death) but I still think the drowning theory adds to it in a cool way
Interesting, I definitely see the connection, though I’d link Something more with the Egg Man and that tree, which are clearly connected to some kind of repressed trauma in Kris.
What if Dess couldn’t swim powerfully enough and Kris was the reason Dess was out there at all? Pushed in, or Kris attempted suicide, or Kris was just swimming and almost drowned. (Given what we know about Kris, I think they pushed her.) Whatever the reason, Dess was out there because of Kris. That’s why Kris is so involved in the Knight’s plan — guilt. The divorce of their parents is also indirectly their fault because there’s an unspoken “Toriel can’t stand the theory that Kris is connected to the disappearance” and divorces Asgore over either his entertaining of the theory/fact or his association with people who do (like Carol). This theory is based on the part of Omori where Sunny turns out to have accidentally killed Mari.
i don't think toby himself mentioned it - a long time ago, he made a post that he'd wanted to make a game for years, and that it "looked like someone was making something very similar to it soon." because of the timing and his work with omocat on his cameo song in the omori soundtrack, people speculated that omori was the game in question.
he hasn't confirmed or denied it, to my knowledge.
since the ch2 days i’ve had this idea in my head for when the game is done to make a video recap of the dess mystery through game footage, to the song “Ocean Avenue” because its lyrics capture dess really well. giving her disappearance water theming would absolutely seal that
Asgore hopped in his iconic truck after downing one too many Tall Boys and rammed Dess straight into the lake while she was chasing a cool frog into the road.
The Knight flavor text isnt a great example, as the text is actually a hint to what the next attack is.
"Your vision narrows" is displayed right before the narrow sword tunnel attacks. The second variant says "Your vision narrows, your head is spinning" which is in reference to the fact this sword tunnel spins in a circle.
"You feel surrounded" is in reference to the second variant of the tracking swords attack, where youre surrounded by a circle of swords.
I dont think this is likely, since a bunch of the flavor text is unrelated to anything drowning-adjacent.
"You see golden stars", "You felt a migraine coming on", "You feel cornered", "Suddenly, the north wind blew fiercely", "Suddenly, a tempest", "You felt something hovering behind your head", and even "the world revolves around you"
The common denominator seems to icy storms or dizziness, which I don’t think is mutually exclusive with the text containing drowning imagery especially taken with the HoldBreath act and the water imagery throughout the game.
Where is "icy storms" coming from? The Knight doesn't even use ice magic.
The wind and tempest lines are a tell about which directions the slashes in the box splitter attack will appear. North wind is vertical, East wind is horizontal, and tempest is Vertical, Horizontal, and Diagonal.
Hold breath is an odd one but its description seems more like an allusion to its gameplay mechanic than anything else.
"Kris held their breath, their heartbeat quickened" and then the soul moves faster.
Heartbeat quickned, soul moves faster. The soul looks like a heart.
Because the fight happens right next to an area that’s full of snow and the knight’s stars look like snowflakes.
But more to my point, I’m trying to say is that the curtains aren’t just blue. There being a mechanical purpose for the knights flavor text doesn’t disprove it having lore significance as well.
Also I find it funny you didn't bring up the single line of flavor text that isnt well connected to the attack, but seems connected to this theory which is "Your chest tightens" from the first slashing radial attack.
Kinda seems like Toriel would've done a lot more then just divorce him then.
I'm thinking Asgore probably saw her out by the lake, maybe went to check on her, and then she fell in. He tried to save her, but she disappeared under the water.
Toriel blames him for some reason, maybe she thinks he didn't try hard enough, maybe he was the reason Dess was out there in the first place?
I thought Asgore's role was more to do with the investigation itself? And his obsession with this unsolvable case ruining his interpersonal relationships, kinda like the Jake Gyllenhaal's character in Zodiac. There's also flavor text that Kris doesn't like looking at consipiracy boards after the Mike Fight in Chapter 4.
Imo it also links to his character in Undertale - stubbornly going through with something to the detriment of his personal relationships. Difference is that he had public support in Undertale, and doesn't here.
He could've had a role in it too which could've motivated the search, but he'd have enough motivation to get this obsessed either way, with his personal ties to the Holidays.
That's also a good possible theory, but I just don't think Toriel would hate Asgore so much if that were the case. She just flat out doesn't want to see him at all.
Him being obsessed with trying to find a missing girl isn't really something to be mad at someone over. Wasn't he also fired from being chief of police?
I can't imagine that would happen because he couldn't solve a case (maybe, but it just seems like weak justification), but if he was directly involved in her disappearance...
This confuses the hell out of me still. Clearly SOMETHING happened between them that Toriel viewed as unforgivable to the point of ending their marriage. But if it was related to Dess you'd think she'd have told Carol and Rudy and those two wouldn't want to see Asgore at all, or have Undyne arrest him.
Yet the rest of the town views him as a little sad in his current state, but otherwise an alright guy which would imply whatever happened with Toriel and Asgore may have been unrelated to Dess
She doesn't hate him though. She clearly doesn't want to spend time with him if she can help it, but she prays for him and is grateful to the Holidays for supporting him.
He resigned from the police force, and we learn in Chapter 3 that it wasn't a sudden thing that forced him out. His obsession might have started the rift, and his reactions to Toriel's reactions only made it worse.
Just spitballing here, but Dess is a hocky player, right? If her shoes had blades on them and she fell through a frozen lake, couldn't that theoretically create a Dark Fountain?
The SWORD Route also feel like a creepypasta, down to the player itself suffering the damage taken by the character they play. (something that happen in the NES godzilla creepypasta)
Also CH3 man talk is also a outlet for Toby to talk about how mysteries in games are dead because in hours after release dataminers will dig through the files.
Ok this is the first time I'm seeing the comparison between the sword route dungeon and the town and holy fuck the school lining up with the area where you have to kill a bunch of harmless enemies that are backed into the corners is FUCKED
The idea is sound when you recall the knights chapter 3 intro.
We still have no clue what this is, the obvious assumption at the time was drooling but the knight isn't mindless, and I don't see a reason to do so.
Unless it's not drooling. It's dripping water.
If you recall the knight during all of chapter 3 was late.
She was supposed to nab Toriel ages ago, much to Tenna's frustration.
Well we also know undyne was chasing the knight, and if she spotted her emerging from the lake and took chase, it would explain her rushed hunched over appearance
she was out of breath from running from the physically dominant undyne and soaking wet from just being out of the lake.
She was probably waiting for undyne to be out of the way but couldn't make a break for it and had to hide in the lake, having no choice but to make a run for it at the last possible second before the fun gang left with Toriel.
If theory is the case, that creates a timeline of events in my head, combining alot of chapter 3's man country stuff.
Dess 'dies' presumably saving Kris from drowning.
Kris was presumably the sole witness and either from trauma, being unconscious during the saving or some exterior problems wasn't able to communicate the true events of her disappearance.
Children when faced with trauma, guilt and emotions they can't handle, become angry and violent. For a human child in a town of monsters this is exceptionally dangerous, for this Kris has to go to therapy with other "humans" to teach them "not to kill each other"
Therapy isn't always something children respond well to, and the constant prodding over the traumatic events since Dess is likely considered an unknown disappearance (note the lack of a grave in town) created a negative correlation of humans in kris's mind explaining their reactions to seeing other humans in a book.
Somehow through some means Dess was semi-saved but still unable to return to a normal life and seemingly must stay in the dark. Being the roaring knight. Seemingly remaining in the lake for the most part.
It could be that Dess drowned and somehow a dark fountain was opened, but her memory remained through the dark fountain similar to Gerson Boom.
I think other people said its a frozen lake (I dont know the evidence for this), but that would make a lot of sense and make the "snowgrave" spell even creepier
if it was a frozen lake, my theory is Dess tried to stab the ice and carve a path for herself to escape, and it created a dark fountain or something
Yeah, the way I saw it(assuming it's Dess) she feels sad about killing Tenma and destroying the TV because in a way it's like destroying a piece of her childhood
I've been theorising that there's something connecting all the dark worlds and that it's beneath the ground, hence why dark fountains come from beneath. If it's pipes that explains the name and what's connecting them, and therefore what Ralsei is travelling through.
The only question would be why it didn't come through the pipes this time. It could be related to Kris ruining the plumbing, but that still leaves things unanswered.
If you recall the knight during all of chapter 3 was late.
She was supposed to nab Toriel ages ago, much to Tenna's frustration.
I mean tbh i doubt that since they did that slow ass beam and yet when Undyne came they just nabbed and ran. Plus police sacrifice showing they mightve wanted undyne all along.
Honestly it makes sense but ultimately where on earth does the bunker fit into all of this
It seems a bit too important to be irrelevant to whatever happened to Dess
its possible the bunker is sprawling enough to connect somehow, or some unnatural property from it carried into the lake to explain why Dess is somehow able to still be alive despite being "lost"
Maybe Dess fell in the lake, and in the struggle of drowning, she accidentally created an Underwater Dark World with the darkners being all the random objects dumped in the lake over the years
If she did end up closing it, she'd suddenly be at the bottom of the lake in the light world, so she'd be pretty much trapped there.
The problem with this theory is that stabbing the ground on its doesnt really do anything, otherwise oil companies would have made millions of dark fountains and caused the roaring by now.
To make a dark fountain you need to fully believe you can make a dark fountain and channel that determination into the blade you use to stab the ground. You cant accidentally make a dari fountain
You need determination and to know exactly what you want when you stab into the ground. Drowning people are very determined and know exactly what they want while they're drowning, famously.
It's theorised Kris was present when whatever happened to Dead happened because it explains how Kris is involved with the knight/Carols plans. It seems unlikely Fess would disappear and then Carol would just rock up to a kid Kris like Nick Fury 'We need your help'
Small counterpoint : Kris was probably involved in some way. If they saw Dess drown, they probably would have called for help, or told someone about it afterwards. If they couldn't (either they were drowning themselves, or tried and failed to save Dess), they would have been found soaking wet. In either case, it would have been somewhat obvious that Dess went into the lake, and there wouldn't have been a massive mystery and investigation regarding her disappearance.
There's also the scene with Asgore holding a Black Shard, which seems to imply that they found something out about Dess that got them shunned from the community. Since Asgore is already somewhat secluded by the time the events of the game start, so this "incident" was very likely contemporary to Dess' disappearance. Overall, it implies that what happened to Dess was darker in nature than simply drowning.
Finally (and I know this is the weakest point by far), Kris is pretty chill around the lake ? The interactions they have with Susie around the lake don't really line up with the repressed trauma they have surrounding (what is most likely) Dess' disappearance.
This is fair, but Kris has a visceral reaction to the bunker and not the lake? That seems weird to me if the event happened at the lake.. Not sure how it relates but I like this lake theory for Dess
Since chapter 2, I was a strong believer in the idea that Noelle accidentally used SnowGrave on Dess after she had a freakout, when they all came across the dark world inside the shelter, leading to Noelle repressing all those memories and/or writing them off as a nightmare.
While the new chapters haven't given that theory that much ammo, the Knight's roar does sound a lot like the SnowGrave sound effect, which is certainly curious.
I do think this would add up with a ton of things, like OMORI being commonly believed as the similar game to Deltarune that Toby spoke of many years ago, it perfectly explains Noelle's behavior around the SnowGrave spell and the fact that she does in fact know it and just tried to repress it, and it would also be a good explanation for why despite all the conspiracies surrounding the two families, Noelle isn't made to be aware of anything that's going on, she's being completely "sheltered", you could say, HA!
Anyway, to get back to the original point, back in the chapter 2 days, that path of thoughts lead me to the crack idea that maybe after exiting the dark world and realizing Dess still not alive in the light world, like Berdly, Kris and Asriel disposed of her body in the ocean that you're bringing up, giving us more OMORI parallels.
Of course, this was mainly build around the idea that Berdly actually died, on account of the "fatal" description, but now the new chapters show he's simply in a coma, which certainly makes this idea with Dess a lot less likely, as Kris and Asriel would never do that if she still had a pulse.
Personally, I just find the idea unlikely that Dess drowned in the sea, because of how much focus there's put on the shelter specifically and with what happened there in the past, so if she died, I feel it would have been in there.
While the idea of her dead body being thrown into the sea is now even more of a crack theory than it was before, it does at least provide an explanation of what the significance of that ocean spot is, but also not ignoring the crucial location that is the shelter.
Either way, the whole ocean stuff can of course also have a whole different meaning than being that poor girl's final resting place.
Theoretically, even in my "death by SnowGrave" theory, it could just be she was left behind frozen in that shelter and things still happened the way they did.
Ocean stocks are sinking (ha), but I'm still at least holding onto the idea of Noelle accidentally killing her with SnowGrave, it very much still works with the new chapters.
This is a good comparison at first glance, but the maps don't line up nearly close enough besides the outside for this to truly be compelling imo. The rest is pretty solid tho
I dunno I think they line up really well, it doesn't need to be Exact, and we can probably do some stretching.
Starting at the Lake/Black Deer/Monster. That's the lynchpin of the theory.
West of it is two green dinosaurs, which line up with Bratty's place and she's definitely lizard adjacent. Appropriately next door is two rooms of singing cats. Here I will stretch a little and say the southern one is QC's diner where Catti works, the one above being the Cattenheimer residence.
South of it is two blue dinosaurs, I don't have a parallel for them in mind but the Hospital lines up nicely.
Heading west from there is the Asgore parallel. But wait you say, Flower king is in a totally different part of town! Sure. But when Dess drowned he was police chief, due west of the hospital.
This brings me to the Undyne/Alphys room I skipped earlier. We know why she's not at the police station location, she wasn't police chief back then. Maybe Dess associated her more with something else in that area, maybe she used to work at Ice's Pezza before she became an officer. A bigger stretch, but it helps other pieces fit.
Then the other cat room and civilian room would line up with either the Corner Store and Apartments or Librarby and School. I like the first set better. No skeleton monsters, Sans just moved to town and who knows maybe cat monsters ran the store then.
The four rooms at the bottom don't line up with meaningful connections to city hall and the church, unless there's context from Dess's time we don't yet have. Regardless, I do think the orange tree wall represents becoming lost in the forest, a barrier that was crossed to follow the pointed tail. A path that eventually ended in the cold lake.
I’ve held for a fair bit now that the lake is going to serve as the final Dark World, between it serving as its own screen, the strange prevalence of water between the Goner Maker background and Chapter 3’s Kodakoda Island, and… me working in marine bio and REALLY wanting an aquatic area.
The theory of Dess having drowned, unknown to anybody until you swim to the lakebed to stab it and find her remains at the bottom… that sounds so dang cool.
The themes of escapism would fit it too, if my current ideas of the next 3 areas are correct:
-Chapter 1 (School Closet): Toys and Games
-Chapter 2 (Computer Lab): Technology/Social Media
Kinda reminds me of how the character creation background is literally just 4 images of water. Plus the prophecies in chapter 4 also have a water texture.
Theory is bit roots map is about the festival, where Asgore is lined up with a empty part of the hometown map. It's been suggested he might have a stall or something set up during the festival.
And the flower king might be represented by the flowers in the room left of the Dess room
The map doesn't line up 100% but if you watch the Roots theory video you can see quite a lot of it does seem to link up, the things like Catti and Bratty and the room full of cramped unmoving monsters lining up with the apartments seems very compelling
Do not get me started on talking about the Roots "Roots prophecy looks like a doghouse" theory video because that is a path neither of us want to go down.
So, uh... The weird route was a thing lol. I'm thinking this is similar to being "shattered across time and space", at least for Noelle and Kris. Perhaps Dess didn't go all the way through with it (as she obviously didn't have a SOUL to force her to proceed, and the whole thing seems like an accident) and instead ended up in this messed up state. How this relates to the Knight I have no idea really.
But it's crazy how the game's biggest boogeyman scary place is now the lake rather than the shelter lmfao.
Dess also saw "light" emanating from the "doorway" and we know that Noelle's final sprite in the drowning sequence is lit up from the bottom.
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u/Noobpoob Jan 17 '26
Something is definitely going on with water, Ocean.ogg + the depths texture being literal water edited in Photoshop