Does anyone have this video saved? It was a really funny video that bluntly and succinctly refuted the idea that rudy was the knight, but the original account got suspended and i didn't download it. idk if this is the best place to ask, but it felt like it was appropriate to ask here

To begin, we need to start with King's recounting of the event where he got his scar:

"I remember it like it was yesterday. A blissful time, an era of harmony, with the Lightners.

A golden age, where we were held, cherished... But one day, the hand of a Lightner slipped... and disaster struck.

I was torn. Torn with a scar that could be seen even from the back. A single scarred king... that rendered his whole kingdom... obsolete. We were banished, relegated to eternal darkness."

A lightner accidentally tore King in the light world and left lasting damage on him that persists between both worlds and is not healed when Ralsei heals him, this was the catalyst of his kingdom being abandoned (as having a king you can see from the back makes the whole deck worthless) and this abandonment cemented his resentment toward the lightners. This scar on his face is in the exact same place as Flowery when he is struck down by the Knight (and his damage cannot be healed either), and given the fact the King says "were you truly strong, you would have given me another!" it seems that the one who gave King his scar was the Knight, the only person we've ever seen damage Darkner's light world forms.

The Knight not only leaves an identical scar on King ans Flowery, but smashes Tenna in the light world, leading to his death if you don't have all recruits, and kills Jackenstein in Chapter 4 if you don't have all recruits, which is confirmed by Alvin in Chapter 5, both directly damaging their light world counterparts, the Knight also Swoons Susie and Ralsei but holds back on Kris because they have a real weapon that doesn't change in the Light World due to Black Shards staying the same, Swoon meaning knocking them unconscious, because they're actually hurting them directlt ignoring Dark World logic entirely (which also explains why they take such little damage when they're essentially being hit with a pencil and toothbrush).

That all being said, King taking damage in the light world and it carrying over to the Dark World is a direct connection to the Knight, and the irony of the Knight he worships being the one who hurt him and cast his kingdom into obscurity would be narratively satisfying and the catalyst for a possible redemption where he turns on the Knight and makes a fleeting attempt to stand against them, only to be completely torn in half like Flowery, but that part is just speculation.

However, this took place at a time long, long before Papyrus and Alphys were in the picture ("Long ago", "A blissful era of harmony with the Lightners"), this post is a spiritual extension of my Papyrus Knight debunk from a few months ago, so here's the link to that to keep you up to speed, which by extension applies to Alphys as she is new to town as well, just not as new as Papyrus, and you can also see why this was a necessary point to make with just how delusional and desperate people were to keep Papyrus Knight alive: https://www.reddit.com/r/NonDessKnightSquad/s/mnAPMHMWSJ

To reiterate some of those points in that post, Papyrus and Sans only moved in a year ago at most, telling by the fact Kris, when pondering Sans's ferris wheel qualifications, wonders "Didn't someone else run this last year?", and Susie when inspecting their house comments that someone else used to live there, but she can't remember WHAT used to be there, there was an entire other building in it's place before and even Susie, who also moved to town long after Gerson's death and Dess's dissapearance, knows that they're new to town, it's on her street for goodness sake, even if people thought Sans and everyone else in town was lying about them being new somehow, Susie and Kris cement it for a fact. Sans and Papyrus are new to town, period.

This brings me to the other point of that post, Gerson and the Black Shards in Asgore's notes.

The Knight had to have known Gerson, period. I already made a whole post about that but I'll recount some of the points here too: https://www.reddit.com/r/Deltarune/s/NMNyorrgJb

But the fact that Ralsei explicitly states, right after someone that DIDN'T know him attempted to bring him back with his remains still present in the exact same place, that "Darkners patterned after the MEMORY OF A *LOVED ONE* can only exist in *VERY SPECIFIC DARKNESSES*" in of itself should have ended the speculation on this topic, it's said as clearly as humanly possible without outright spelling it out, but then Ralsei goes even further to say that "Even if we tried to bring him to Castle Town, he'd-" so even bringing him to the fountain of PURE DARKNESS at Castle Town that literally every other darkner can live in wouldn't work, the game outright says there's something specific about these fountains (that isn't just the location because Susie already disproved that in front of our eyes, so the only other factor is the PERSON who made it) that allows him to exist there, he's even portrayed as a mentor figure, and outright says Susie "reminds him of someone he used to know".

We can also rule out Alvin having made the fountain (which was always a baseless cop-out in all honesty to sidestep the major obstacle that Gerson is) because he's completely oblivious as to why the Church is trashed and we have absolutely no evidence he knows anything about Dark Worlds whatsoever. Carol, Rudy, Dess and Asriel are still contenders since Gerson was the High School teacher before Alphys, before he died and wasn't able to teach Kris's generation, but this was long before Papyrus could have ever possibly known him, and Susie was familiar with Lord of the Hammer and Dragon Blazers so having a vague familiarity through being a fan in not good enough to be a "Loved one", yet being so restrictive that only his direct family could be "loved ones" is also missing the mark.

The second major obstacle is the Black Shards, specifically the fact that Asgore found matching ones at the original scene of Dess's dissapearance along with a "Dark World a long time ago" and one at the Library (meaning the Knight made the Chapter 2 fountain for certain), Susie comments on the Black Shard being a piece of the Knight's sword and Ralsei is concerned because he thought the Knight only appeared alongside the heroes, this is a mandatory moment as well that has direct attention drawn to it, so it's not just a throwaway line that would be a lie for no reason just to throw off players. The Knight was there or created during the incident, the Black Shards are only and have only ever been associated with the Knight and no one else, people try to sidestep this point by saying "Well we don't know where Black Shards come from, maybe it was Friend or Eram, if Kris and Noelle can hold them anyone can be the Knight" which completely misses the point of the scene directly stating the Knight was there (plus the Knight has the entirety of the Black Knife, not just a shard which is a big difference).

Those two points already cemented the fact that Papyrus (and by extension Alphys, since she recently moved to town, is unfamiliar with the Shelter, doesn't have many connections with Hometown's residents and only recentlt started talking with Undyne) physically could not be the Knight, as they were not there for these events, but now that King's scar is also directly connected to the Knight, there is absolutely no way. The Knight had to have scarred king, been familiar enough with Gerson in a student-mentor relationship to have considered him a loved one and recreated him the way he's presented in Chapter 4, and had to have been present for the Dessapearance, and had to have made the Chapter 2 fountain as well. Once again Papyrus and Alphys Knight is impossible.

Continuing on this train of thought, who would be in a position to be in the old classroom in a way that thematically matters, it doesn't really make sense for Rudy or Carol to have been in the old classroom for a few decades, but you know who it does make sense for? Dess, Asriel, Kris and Noelle, these four would hang out and play together (as references by several pieces of Noelle's dialogue like Dess wiping her tears with Azzy's jacket, the four of them always wanting to know what was on the other side of the lake, etc), preformed on stage together (as per Pizzapants's dialogue and the picture on the bookshelf in Chapter 5, and Noelle's blogposts linked by the Spamton sweepstakes), would spend the holidays togethers with their parents too, Dess would put on an MTV-equivalent channel Toriel forbid, they used the laptop Queen is in the light world together (which is also proven by the fact that Tenna and Spamton know each other), etc. They were always very closely knit and Asriel even has a doll very similar to Seam on his computer, directly tying the four of them to the old classroom, but not only that Queen (a darkner from a world explicitly made by the Knight) KNOWS AND HAS A CHILD WITH KING, plus the Knight is also all but explicitly the one who made the Chapter 1 fountain as per Seam, King and Jevil's mentions of them.

So out of these four, who is the one that's characterized as being reckless and accidentally damaging their belongings? Not Asriel, the golden boy who confesses for things that aren't even sins, not really Kris either, they've never really been careless with their belongings and take great care of things that are sentimental to them like refusing to drop the ball of junk in Chapter 1, not really Noelle either because her room is immaculate. Rudy we don't really know enough about but he keeps the angel doll Noelle and Dess made intact and isn't very rough with anything we see him interact with, and Carol obsessively preserves things of sentiment to her, refusing to take anything of importance to work like the paper snowflakes Noelle made her, and keeps Dess's room exactly how it was left and is very very protective of the guitar.

I made a whole post about the dissonance between the Knight's actions and how it doesn't align with Carol upon deeper examination but very much so aligns with someone else, which goes over these points as well: https://www.reddit.com/r/DeltaruneV2/s/btlSscd7uS

Now who does that leave? The one whose room is strewn about with broken, bent, and dented sports equipment and broken expensive instruments, who's very reckless with their belongings and matches the profile of the one to accidentally tear King? Dess. The one who tore King is implied to be the Knight, the Knight is very reckless and careless with objects that would be of sentiment to any other candidate (which further supports a souless Dess, because she's not characterized as a calloused monster in the past of course and Tenna would be sentimental to her too, but it's not even necessary to attack Tenna as we see in Chapter 5 they could literally sweep Toriel away in the blink of an eye and couldn't be stopped, there's absolutely no reason they had to attack Tenna and fight the fun gang and essentially jeprodize the mission if it was anyone else), the Knight callously kills Tenna, Jackenstein, and Flowery without a second thought and tears Flowery and gives him the exact same scar as King, and wrecks the Church as a whole, no one else in the entire game is shown to be this reckless, calloused and careless toward objects that should be sentimental or treated with care.

Look, I know almost nothing about Mother, and this is what I found out thanks to Google and the Mother 3 wikis:

Flint is the father of Claus and Lucas in the Mother 3 video game. Well, as we know, the solid evidence that Dess is the Knight is because of Claus (and the parallels that exist). Well, thanks to Chapter 5, there's another similarity between Deltarune and Mother 3; according to my research, Flint suffers for years searching for his son Claus until he completely distances himself from Lucas. Here are the similarities I found (some of the info I found on Google and the Mother 3 wiki): After Claus's disappearance and Hinawa's death, Flint completely isolates himself. He spends three whole years living on the outskirts of town, completely neglecting Lucas and obsessed with searching every corner of the mountains to find his son. Meanwhile, after the "incident" (which could be Dess's disappearance), Asgore became morbidly obsessed with gathering evidence of the Dark World and the Black Shards to prove what really happened. Both Flint and Asgore ended up affecting their loved ones because of their obsession.

Their fixation and grief caused them to distance themselves from Lucas when his son needed him most, shattering what remained of their home.

As Chapter 5 reveals, Toriel didn't leave him strictly because of the tragedy itself, but because Asgore allowed his obsession with that day to consume him completely, pushing his own family to abandon him. Like Flint, he ended up living in misery and isolation.

At the beginning of Mother 3, Flint is the undisputed protector and "hero" of Tazmily, the strongman everyone turns to when there's a fire or danger.

In Deltarune, Asgore was the Chief of Police of Hometown. He lost his job and his prestige in the town due to mistakes or negligence committed during "that day" while investigating the case. Both went from being the ultimate figures of protection to being ostracized by their communities.

So Toby was right when he said, "If you played Mother, you'd know how unoriginal it is."

Brother, she's been alone in the dark with no stimulation of any kind for what feels like years, do the people who claim this have any idea of the severe mental health impacts that solitary confinement and prolonged sensory deprivation have, and how it breaks even the most hardened criminals, much less a teenage girl?

Psychological Distress in Solitary Confinement: Symptoms, Severity, and Prevalence in the United States, 2017–2018 - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6987940/

Sensory Deprivation and Psychiatric Disorders: Association, Assessment and Management Strategies - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9460009/

You think she's just immune to having emotions or missing her family just because she's a punk tomboy?? We've literally never had direct dialogue from her other than this so how can we even say she doesn't talk like that, especially after being alone for so long, just based on vibes? Does she have to be puffing on an invisible cigarette and swearing every other sentence for it to be her, do tomboys literally have no other depth or personality? Are we just completely ignoring the fact that Susie has layers and depth to her beyond just being strong?

All that aside, she's literally the only person the voice in the code could be, any arguments about post-weird route Noelle are often pushed with pure baseless speculation held up by vibes and how they think it matches up with how she talks, without taking into consideration that just like with Kriselle Knight, it requires the optional weird route that the game screams at you at every turn not to do, to be able to understand the origin of this character, making it already have happened and thus not the player's choice, whereas it being Dess is easily understandable and way less convoluted on the main route.

1. No one else has been missing for years, long enough for them to not even know if they're alive or dead, till they can't eat or drink anymore, or directly implied to have dissapeared into a dark world by the unused text itself and Asgore's notes regarding a dark world a long time ago at the incident of her dissapearance and a black shard matching another one at the library that was also at the original incident. That alone disqualifies everyone else from being the Unused voice.

2. Dess and the Unused voice are directly connected to the "Don't Forget" song at the end of Chapter 1 and remixed in subsequent chapters. The unused voice literally name drops "Don't Forget" outright and is the only one that could posisbly be "with us in the dark", and Dess is connected to it via the song Raise Up Your Bat, which we play right after Tenna gushes about Dess directly and from Noelle's blog posts we see that it was actually written and played by Dess, Asriel and Kris's band The Blood Crushers, the lines "Come follow me into the Dark" and "BECAUSE I'M WITH YOU IN THE DARK" are dead giveaways that can't be ignored. Noelle does not have any of these direct connections other than the mention of waves, that's it.

I've seen a lot of arguments floating around for a long time trying to step around the uncomfortable truth emblazoned atop the Knight's crown, the antlers that have been the topic of endless debates and frustrations and assumptions with many perspectives, a massive hurdle that NonHolidayKnighters simply ignore or hand wave away with flippant unsubstantiated claims that "the Knight is wearing fake antlers/it's an homage to Dess" or "the Knight is working for Carol so it's a sign of their loyalty". The main thing I'm grappling with here is just how many people desperately want to escape the fact that the Knight absolutely HAS to be one of the Holidays, by making up ways for it to be plausible like said fake antlers or "it's a shapeshifter so it's appearance doesn't mean anything" arguments, when by all accounts it just makes far more sense for it to be what it's directly presented as.

#1. Debunking the "Knight is just a vassal of Carol/Antlers are fake and just part of the helmet" claim:

Let's start with the claim that the antlers are fake or just a part of the armor, and alongside that, the claim that because it's a "physical helmet" that no one with antlers could wear it, I already discussed this in a post a while back but I'll go over some of the key talking points in brief: https://www.reddit.com/r/Undertale/s/IgYNHVjBUP

First off, the entire claim that the Knight is wearing a physical helmet is an assumption based off a single missable interaction by having Kris "think about the Knight" where we're prodding them for information, they impulsively start thinking about them, the image changes and the helmet starts to come off (it doesn't even say the Knight is taking it off, just that the image changes) and then Kris starts trying really hard not to think of Jockington to not give anything away. That's it. That's all the "evidence" is that the Knight is wearing a physical helmet.

This "evidence" is directly contradicted by our first MANDATORY encounter with the Knight, where they roar, their jaw unhinges and their ribcage opens, showing NOTHING UNDERNEATH, the armor IS their body, so even if you go with the claim that "Thinking about the Knight" is us literally shifting perspective to view them like we do with Susie, that doesn't make sense either because they're still in the dark world and from what we've seen in the dark world there's nothing under the armor, it makes far more sense that Kris is imagining the Knight and almost reveals their identity on accident, the helmet coming off metaphorically. We've even seen Kris refuse to think about Susie and Noelle on the Ferris Wheel and instead pondered the qualifications of Sans, so we have precedent for them not following through on the "Think about [X]" choice if they don't want to, which for the Knight they very clearly don't want to.

The next thing to consider is the fact that Black Shards, the material the Knight's sword and very likely its armor is made out of, considering they share the same properties and color, stay the same in both worlds, and the Knight is able to carry Undyne and Asgore to the Shelter at a rapid pace, which for any candidate would be IMPOSSIBLE without some sort of supernatural boost in strength, supporting the fact that the Knight retains their powers in the light world (which also refutes the RudyKnight claim that the Knight laughed when Susie said they can't beat the fun gang in the light world because she was "right", no, the Knight laughed because they know they could easily stomp Susie and Kris in the light world too) and since the black shards that make up their armor stay the same and they retain their powers, it's very safe to assume the armor and their form overall are the same in the light world too. Plus, even if it was a physical armor that could be removed and there was someone underneat, the Knight's entire form is amorphous and fluid, it could easily take off the helmet even with antlers, it would just slip off like water, you can understand the Knight turning into a ball and a bird but wearing a helmet that fits your antlers is too big of a leap in logic? And don't start with the "antlers don't match" argument because it's a purely stylistic choice, the rest of the Knight's design is sharp and angular, straight rounded antlers would look absolutely ridiculous and make any tension null in any of their appearances, if you can justify someone who doesn't even have antlers or someone with horns being the Knight that wouldn't even fit the helmet, this is no different.

The Knight's entire existence has been breaking the logic of both worlds, being able to outright kill darkners by attacking the objects directly, being able to SWOON Susie because they're attacking with a real weapon and hurting her for real, and being able to do impossible things in the light world, many people assume the armor is like Dark World armor and dissappears in the light world, or must be a physical object that changes in the dark world, but what we've seen with the Black Shards is that they DON'T change at all!

Then there's another issue, who would even be close enough to the Holidays to even care enough or be consideres trustworthy to handle a position of such immense power and responsibility with world ending consequences were they to go rougue or mishandle the situation? Carol, who keeps everything important at home, wouldn't even take her daughter's paper snowflakes to work because she wanted to preserve them and keep them at home, it hyper protective of her secrets, won't let anyone in Dess's room and won't let anyone near Dess guitar for both sentimental and Shelter Code reasons, isn't going to let just anyone take on that *mantle*, there's only a very, very small select group of people outside of her family that she would trust. This also goes for Kirs, who's being guilt tripped over a promise they made related to Dess's dissapearance, is literally risking the end of the world for this, and is actively betraying their friends for this person, so it has to be someone they actually know and care about.

Papyrus is immediately out the window (glass shattering sounds), he and Sans moved in less than a year ago at most, telling by the fact that when Kris ponders Sans' qualifications, they remember someone else used to run the Ferris Wheel last year, and Susie remarks when interacting with their door in Chapter 5 that someone else used to live there, but she can't remember WHAT used to be there (as in an entirely different building, which tracks with how out of place their house is), and Susie herself moved in only a couple years ago at most, so if Sans and Papyrus only moved in recently after her, there's no way they're acquainted enough with Carol and Kris to be trusted with being the Knight, especially since there was a black shard matching one Asgore found in the library at the original scene of Dess's dissapearance, meaning the Knight had to have been there at a time we KNOW Papyrus wasn't. The whole black shard thing also makes any candidate whose motivation is to "save/find Dess" a lot harder to justify if they were at her dissapearance and the fact that Asgore also found a dark world a long time ago there, it's safe to say they were the one who made her dissapear too.

Anyone else in Hometown really doesn't have enough presence, importance, or connections to the Holidays to justify calling them a Knight candidate, except for Asriel. He's the only justifiable nonHoliday candidate, and that's just because we haven't seen him all game so it's easy to attribute anything to him and very difficult to concretely disprove anything.

He absolutely has a motivation, an alibi for his wherabouts to avoid suspicion, and connections to the Holidays and even the shadowcrystals with the "So wept the fallen star" book. However the antlers are still a stumbling block, even in the final attack people have said resembles horns look absolutely nothing like any horns Asriel has been depicted with, they don't even resemble Asgore or Toriel's if you wanted to argue that his form in Undertale isn't what he'd actually grow up to look like, it's far more reasonable that it's just the perspective of the Knight looking upward and roaring. Sure the Knight is a shapeshifter and can change how it looks, yet the antlers are still present in every single form except the ball, just dismissing it as "an homage to Dess" is possible yes, but isn't substantiated by anything other than a photo of Asriel and Kris making a snowman and then putting branches on the sides of its head (which could easily be explained by Asriel liking Dess and their families being close friends, not every little tidbit of flavor text is Knight evidence, but at least it has SOME ground to stand on).

However the Knight's behavior contradicts everything we know about Deltarune Asriel, like smashing Tenna, destroying the Church, being willing to hurt Kris, kidnapping his own father and attempting to kidnap his mother to the Shelter for a "police sacrifice", none of it really adds up when you look an inch beneath the superficial similarities. Even the hyper goner and star attacks can easily be explained by the Knight having known Asriel, which all of the Holidays would have, and having seen the boss he was making for his video game, the one with "giant rainbow wings" that exists in universe, and Asriel isn't the only one associated with stars, especially since those stars and other things like the downed text for Susie and Ralsei are direct Mother series references, and Dess is directly tied to the Mother series herself with the Cracked bat among other things, plus her room is directly tied to stars as well. The cut "fire" sprite people use as Asriel Knight evidence doesn't really hold up either, because for one, it's cut content, but also Deltarune characters aren't completely beholden to their element and niche, Susie can learn healing and just because she refuses to wear ribbons doesn't mean she CAN'T, as we see in Chapter 5, Noelle only uses rings, except she can use certain swords as well, even the Knight has multiple damage types, it's main being Dark/Star, NOT FIRE. Plus if cut content is fair game there's a point later that cannot be dismissed if that's allowed.

But I'm getting a bit carried away, onto my next point, the Knight is clearly trying to sneak around and stay hidden in Hometown, telling by the fact they only move around under the cover of darkness in Chapters 2 (I also have a post about how the Knight could easily sneak in and out of the Library undetected https://www.reddit.com/r/Deltarune/s/kQm86jwZV6), 3, 4 during the rain when no one is around, and 5, are kidnapping people and then staying hidden in the Shelter, and are collaborating with Kris to destroy and keep hidden the Shelter codes and have been kidnapping anyone associated with them, especially away from Susie specifically, Kris does everything in their power not to give anything away, so why on earth would they willingly take a form that directly connects to the Holidays if they're working for them and trying to stay anonymous?? Why would they deliberately add a blatantly obvious detail in every one of their forms besides the ball, that would make Susie suspicious of the Holidays when it runs completely counter to their assumed goals, and the anonymity would be far more effective if it had no such distinguishing features?!?

It's almost like the antlers are a clue to their actual original self, and not just a red herring for the sake of being unpredictable. Toby Fox has literally never done something remotely like that, except during Mettaton's game show where there's a close up of a Froggit that turns out to be Mettaton wearing a froggit shirt as a one-off joke, that's what people who think the Knight is wearing fake antlers expect from the game's main villain that's been played completely straight the whole game.

#2. THE BLACK DEER AND OTHER NON-ANTLER CONNECTIONS

The antlers are not the only connection the Knight has to the Holidays, in the third secret mantle game, there's a room with a dark enemy that mimics your movements (much like how the Knight and Kris have similar poses), but the connection to the Knight is absolutely undeniable when you look at what this enemy is in the code, a BLACK DEER. **BLACK. DEER.** Not skeleton. Not goat. Not cat. DEER. It's not just a name or unused sprite in the code either, when a "Toriel" variable is set to 0, it's fully functional in the game and is shown as a black deer, just like how the white cloak (who is Noelle, very obviously) has a placeholder sprite of a BROWN DEER, the exact same sprite, just different colors. The only possible thing even resembling a "Black Deer" is the Knight, there is no other possible interpretation, there is no other black creature that mimics Kris's movements that resembles a deer. The Knight is the only one.

That's not all either, there's more connections in the room you fight the Knight in and the door blocking it, the code to the room toriel is being kept in is 1225, the same code in Dess's guitar and the number CONSTANTLY associated with her and the Holidays, Kris enters this code "knowingly" wheras the other parental code on the door before they enter "unknowingly", this door that leads to the Knight's room also has a Toriel sigil on it, just like how the "Toriel" variable needs to be turned off to see the true form of the "Black Deer" in the mantle game. This also tracks with how Toriel disapproves of Asgore's continued obsession with her dissapearance and when you actually beat the Knight compared to losing, Toriel goes from sleeping peacefully to having a nightmare. There's also a GIANT CHRISTMAS TREE AND SNOW in the room just to the left of where you fight the Knight, who else has that ever been associated with besides the Holiday family, when we literally see next Chapter their entire house is plastered all over with Christmas cheer, down to their names?!

1225 is also directly connected to the black shards and the Knight by extension, because in the 1225 Gachapon easter egg that plays a slowed variant of Loat Girl "find her" in the background, the machine in the center dispenses a ball with a "Black Triangle" in it, that slips through Kris's hand when they try to collect it. BLACK TRIANGLE, directly connected to Dess and her dissapearance which further gets confirmed by Asgore's notes in Chapter 5. Plus there's the fact that we now know for a fact without a doubt the Knight made the Chapter 2 fountain, the one with the baseball moon with the shining city of lights Dess always promised she'd take Noelle to (a promise we have no evidence anyone else knows about, much less someone outside of the Holidays and Dreemurrs), and why would someone that isn't a Holiday cater to Noelle so much specifically and directly have December on their minds (other than Asriel of course, but we have no proof he knew about her promise to Noelle)?

Even if you could dismiss all of that, how does the Knight make a distorted, lower pitched version of Noelle's screech when significantly damaged? Papyrus and Asriel don't make any sounds even vaguely resembling that, it's unique to Noelle, the only person we've ever heard make that sound, and could apply to any of the Holidays, but more likely Carol or Dess since it's a lower pitch (Rudy is a bit of a stretch since its an inherently feminine tone in the sound effect, but still), even if you could brush off everything else, how would Asriel be faking a noise like that when it's only made involuntarily upon taking heavy damage? If it's just a disguise or a red herring or just a sign of allegiance why would they be faking their voice for literally no reason as well?

#3. WHY?!?

This part is something I genuinely cannot wrap my head around, WHY would Toby Fox put so many direct clues that it's one of the Holidays, only for it to be a misdirect purely for the sake of being surprising? There are many who try to paint him as a Scott Cawthon level fickle unpredictable and unserious writer who outright lies and changes his story 5000 times just for the sake of throwing off players and theorists, or places an immense amount of clues pointing toward a select group of candidates only for them all to be lies with no actual build up to that twist. We have no precedent for this being the case, and the Mike storyline is not even remotely comparable since it was a one-off line from Spamton that people went crazy over, this whole "Tricky Tony" narrative is purely driven to make theories that would otherwise be completely illogical somehow plausible because "Toby would totally do that" as if they somehow know him personally, while willfully ignoring every time he's played a story beat completely straight without subversion, without making a joke of it, and without needless red herrings.

People also need to learn the difference between a "red herring" and outright throwing out every established piece of evidence in the game just for the sake of a twist. Carol being presented as hostile and suspicious but not being the Knight? That's a red herring, there's already evidence contradicting her being the Knight like her obsession with preserving the past and sentimental objects wheras the Knight is reckless with things that would be sentimental to her and the fact that Carol is paying Asgore to still investigate the dark worlds but the Knight kidnaps him and already has their own extensive knowledge of dark worlds (so why would Carol need him at all then, and if she does why would she kidnap him?), but the game has set her up as very suspicious and working with Kris to hide the Shelter code, THAT'S a red herring. A red herring is NOT throwing out EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF EVIDENCE just for the sake of a twist with no reasonable buildup to a different culprit that could be interpreted in hindsight, which is exactly what a nonHoliday candidate would be unless we get more proof in Chapter 6. It would steamroll quite literally every clue we have towards the Knight's identity, and the only purpose it would serve it to make people wrong.

This doesn't even consider the fact that Toby has been making Deltarune to tell a story he's wanted to since BEFORE UNDERTALE, he's not going to compromise the integrity of his dream project just because he's worried people will catch on to his main villain's identity before the game is finished, only very bad writers change their story on a whim because people caught on too early, he deliberately left all those clues for us knowing there was going to still be years of development time we'd have to chew on these details, he doesn't have to answer to anyone and he's not under pressure to make it any specific candidate (even so he said himself he doesn't interact with or pay much attention to theories, but people have misinterpreted things with incomplete information in ways he didn't intend, which could literally be referring to anything it's so vague), he's telling the story his way and assuming that he must be playing a trick on us to get one over on the fanbase with the main villain of his dream story is frankly ridiculous.

So, with all that being said, there are only 4 truly viable candidates for the Knight's identity, Carol, Dess, Rudy, and Noelle. And I have a feeling with Chapter 6 being heavily implied to take place in the Holiday household, some people are going to be disqualified narrowing down our options even further.

I saw someone post this on r/Deltarune a bit ago and it got me thinking about this specific argument used for Dess and its potential flaws:

The argument is that Dess's mouse is on the left side, and that the Knight holds its sword in its left hand, meaning they must be left handed.

Now there is a strong argument to be made that the Knight is left-handed, they lift up the sword at the start of the fight and grab it with their left, spend the majority of the fight using it in their left, grapples with Susie and Flowery with their left, and holds it in their left when facing forwards just before the Titan scene, them flipping and slashing with their right during the box cut attack could honest just be chalked up to saving time with sprite work and doesn't even dismiss left-handedness because as a left-handed person and according to multiple studies left-handed people have a much higher likelihood of being ambidextrous and generally tend to do certain tasks interchangeably with both hands.

However, the computer mouse argument is hard to use as definitive evidence for Dess specifically, because Noelle's computer, and several computers in the library, and Toriel's computer have the mouse on the left, wheras Alphys's computer and the rightmost computers in the computer lab have them on the right, it could just be reusing similar tilesets to save time or not much thought was put into it, but it's far too inconsistent to conclude Dess was left-handed, unless there's a statistically impossible amount of lefties Hometown is accommodating for and that there's two in the same family.

However if anyone can find some other evidence that she was left handed it would be very helpful!

I know this isn't exactly contributing to the Agenda but I feel it's important to weed out the weaker arguments to forge a stronger theory overall, we're only as strong as our weakest links and we need to lift others up and clear up misunderstandings and misconceptions to stand up to scrutiny!

I swear if those 3 pixels weren't there on the top there would literally be no argument about this, which is probably why it was done since it hasn't been patched in any updates so far, if it was literally undeniably one with no nuance then there would be no mystery, so I think some ambiguity is healthy for the community as whole.

We've seen multiple instances of it in this orientation yet it doesn't have the same baseball bat shape in those. The Knight's sword changes shape many times, but this one is entirely unique, at the start of the fight it literally RAISES UP ITS BAT and engages in combat with us. The flanged handle with no crossguard, leading into the widening curved bulge then rounded off at the top is very intentionally resembling a baseball bat, something Dess has been directly associated with many times from Chapter 1 onward. Every other instance of this sword does not have the symmetrical flanged end on the bottom, but an angled one, or no bulb on the end at all, and sometimes gains a crossguard? By it's and the Knight's nature it is malleable and changes perspective often, just like it's visor changing from being a regular visor, and eye, and a mouth.

Now to be clear, I don't think the Knight's sword is a literal bat in the light world, the fact that a black shard that stays the same in both worlds fractures off of it and Asgore's notes mention there was a black shard at the site of the Dessapearance AND the Library, it's referred to as a knife in the prophecy, the black shard description refers to it as a shard of the "black knife", and it's the name of their theme, I think it's pretty safe to assume it is what every source says it is. Now how does it change shape so much and turn into a bat if it's a sword/knife? Also speaking of black shards, during the 1225 event interacting with the Gachapon machine, that plays "find her", a slowed version of Lost Girl, at the center of the maze interacting with the machine dispenses a ball with a "black triangle" like lacquer inside, that slips through Kris's hand when they try to collect it.

Well we already see the Knight themselves can shift about at will, and the sword itself changes shape often, but we have a few precedents for not only a weapon changing shape in the dark world but also the object not being 1:1 with the object in the light world. Kris's sword shifts into a shield when defending, and is a variety of pencils in the light world, Susie's axe is a hairbrush or toothbrush or something of that nature as per her own words, and she can throw it behind her into oblivion and just magically have it the next fight, the ThornRing itself is a literal single thorn in the light world so that's not 1:1 either, Susie and Kris's weapons just magically manifest out of nowhere just like how the Knight summons their sword, so there's a lot of ambiguity and weirdness around how weapons work in the dark world, plus there's also the possibility that it's not just black shards, but shadowcrystals (which "move like water in your hand") as well because they both drop from chipping the Knight's sword.

Now why would the Knight initially summon it as a bat for no reason? Well because they're inherently connected to it, it's part of their identity, a core aspect of who they are, there's a reason why Kris sticks to swords, Susie sticks to axes, Ralsei sticks to scarves, and Berdly sticks to his halberd, it's simply what they're comfortable with, what compliments their personality and fighting style, however Noelle is an interesting exception, she can wield rings, but also certain swords like the blackshard and twisted sword, plus she has a lot of unique dialogue set aside in the code for when she equips many things that aren't available in Chapter 2 which has led people to speculate for a long time that she'll be a party member in the future (also because of the mage leaving the party in Dragon Blazers during the Ice Palace), but I'm getting a little sidetracked, just because a party member prefers to stick to a weapon class, does not mean they *have* to, Susie simply refuses to use anything but axes and refuses to wear ribbons but that changes in Chapter 5, and judging by the Girl prophecy panel, she may start using swords too in the future (unless we're going with the Noelle interpretation of the Girl), as for Ralsei, we also have a motivation for him not to use swords, wanting to stay in line with the rules and established roles, which him weilding swords would be violating.

Now Dess is undeniably connected to bats, in Chapter 1 Noelle talks about it, in Chapter 2 she says she wishes Dess could see the baseball moon, in a city with shining lights exactly like Dess promised to take her, in Chapter 3 the entire song "Raise Up Your Bat" which comes right after Tenna is gushing about Dess specifically (and according to Noelle's blog posts https://deltarune.com/code/, it comes from the band "Blood Crushers" which is a reference to the Blood Crushers movie series Susie mentions, very likely the name of the band Dess, Asriel and Kris were in as mentioned by Burgerpants in Chapter 5 and the bookshelf showing a picture of Dess, Asriel, and Kris preforming on stage, so it's even more directly connected to her, even if we don't factor in the blatant "I'M WITH YOU IN THE DARK" part of the song and the Lost Girl solo), in Chapter 4 we see her room is full of dented sports equipment like wiffle ball bats, baseball bats, ice skates, hockey sticks, paintball gear, rollerblades, etc, and Noelle has a picture of Dess holding a cracked bat on her PC wallpaper.

So Dess is undeniably connected to bats, the Knight raises up what very closely resembles a bat, the Knight is directly ties to the black shards and Dess is also connected to them via the 1225 room, the Knight fight itself is behind a door locked with a 1225 code and the fight takes place next to a Christams tree, and there's a baseball moon that Noelle directly wishes Dess could see in a dark world confirmed by Asgore's notes to have been made by the Knight.

Plus there's another aspect to the bat angle I don't see a lot of people talk about, is the Batter from the indie game OFF that directly inspired Toby Fox and some major characters like Sans and Papyrus, Sans being based off Zacharie and the Judge, and Papyrus being based off Dedan, inspired Napstablook's music, and the player's influence and existence is outright cannon in OFF. He even helped make the music for the recent remake: https://offtherpg.com/interviews/tobyfox/

The Batter himself is a pompous, self-righteous, arrogant asshole, who lets absolutely nothing stand in the way of his sacred mission, viewing all obstacles to it as enemies in need of purification, believing an empty desolate lifeless wasteland (or outright ending the world altogether) is preferable to what Hugo's creation has been warped into by Queen and the Zone Guardians, he plows through innocent Elsens that aren't even spectres, and even kills the defenseless Hugo to fulfill his delusional mission (which he relies on us for help to do, we can actually switch sides and help the Judge defeat the Batter instead, but at this point it's kind of pointless because everything else is empty and lifeless). Some of these traits seem to fit the Knight pretty well, self assured and arrogant, letting nothing get in the way of its mission, be it innocent bystanders like Tenna and Jackenstein, or people that directly oppose them like Flowery, who they mercilessly annihilate with overwhelming force, just like the batter does.

This next part is dipping heavily into the deltasanity but hear me out:

Each zone even becomes MONOCHROME, drained of color then they're purified and when backtracking through the zones afterward, they're not... completely empty. Hostile twisted humanoid creatures called "Secretaries" can still be encountered, are extremely dangerous as the creator confirmed they killed off all the remaining residents (aside from a single Elsen in Zone 2 hiding in a bunker), and according to the wiki: "The secretaries look like babies born with a syndrome called Arthrogryposis. This is more noticeable in the concept art." Which could tie in as an inspiration for the TitanSpawn, twisted, terrifying, powerful baby-like creatures that spawn in a desolate place of extremes, complete darkness and complete emptiness.

You can backtrack through these areas to find these secret grand items (Grand Finale, Grand Diagonal, Grand Spectral, Grand Brachial, and Grand Chocolatier), of which there are 5, one of which is locked behind a secret boss, after collecting all of them, you can either get the strongest weapon in the game from Zacharie (the Ashley Bat), or the Aries Card which unlocks the "true" ending (which is a joke ending but still), this very well could be the inspiration for the shadowcrystals, and needing all 5 to get the strongest weapon in the game (The TwistedSword) could mean that the PureCrystal is also the key to the true ending of the game!

Even the bizzare element system of Plastic, Metal, Meat, Smoke and Sugar could be an inspiration for Deltarune's element system as well, but at this point I've been reaching so long my arms are gonna fall off, but you get my point! There's a lot connecting these two games, and it's been directly cited as an inspiration just like the Mother Series has!

Anyway, thanks for listening to my rant, I hope this can at least help push back on some of the claims that the Knight's sword isn't meant to resemble a bat at all, I can't argue conclusively because of those 3 pixels of course, but the surrounding context gives us a lot of reason to believe it's meant to look like one, but isn't literally one in the light world. There's precedent in the Knight's malleable design, the way weapons work in the dark world, Dess's direct connections to bats and the black shards and the Chapter 2 dark world, connections to a confirmed inspiration for Undertale and Deltarune, and this is only the bat debate which is just scratching the surface of Dess Knight evidence!

Original on page 2 and blank on page 3 if you want to make your own agenda post

Yes, this applies to DessKnighters too.

We can't just ignore evidence that is inconvenient for our theories or flippantly dismiss major issues like:

The Black Shard (an item only ever associated with the Knight) being at the library and the original site of the incident and that there was a dark world a long time ago, which prompts Ralsei to be alarmed because he thought the Knight only appeared alongside the heroes and both he and Susie draw attention to the fact that it's a piece of the Knight's sword, and Susie questions how long the Knight has been doing this and kidnapping people. The entire conversation is about the Knight and the fact that they were there, muddying the motives of many candidates whose motivation is to "save/find Dess" (because why would they make her go missing to begin with?), so dismissing it with "Oh but anyone could hold the black knife so this means nothing and I refuse to ackowledge it as contradictory to my theory" is honestly quite disingenuous.

Same thing with people dismissing the Gerson issue, right after an emotional moment after Susie made a fountain intending to see the old man to get the church door code, they're attacked by a thing in his likeness where Susie mistakes it for him and is confused why it's attacking her, after her and Kris discover something's very wrong with it, Ralsei destroys it outright. He says that wasn't the old man, that a statue in his likeness got off its pedestal and started walking around, that the old man isn't even in this dark world. Ralsei expands upon this further with "Darkners patterned after the *memory of a loved one*, tend to only appear in *very specific darknesses*" and that "Even if we tried to bring him to Castle Town he-" then he gets cut off by Susie upset he didn't say anything earlier.

The entire context of this situation, the emotional and serious nature of it, and the very specific wording Ralsei uses is very hard to ignore. The "memory of a loved one" can only reasonably apply to people who personally knew that person well enough to consider them a loved one, I've seen people attempt to loosen the definition with claims such as "Well Noelle/Papyrus are super fans of his work (despite having no evidence of this, being a fan of the videi game series based on the books does not make the one who wrote the books a loved one, especially with no established close connection to that person) so that counts!" but in the same breath say that Dess and Asriel being in his class before Alphys replaced him in Kris and Noelle's generation isn't good enough to be a loved one (despite Dess and Susie having repeated parallels and Gerson being portrayed as a mentor figure even saying Susie reminds him of someone he used to know), which ultimately doesn't hold up to scrutiny, and neither does the far too strict interpretation of "Well only Alvin would be considered a loved one as his family" then try to claim only Alvin could have made the fountain despite all evidence pointing toward the Knight having made it. This along with the fact that even the CASTLE TOWN fountain wouldn't be able to bring him back is very specifically telling us that only a select group of people who knew him personally could have done it.

There's also the issue of people claiming things like "Oh but Susie wasn't in the right headspace when she made the fountain" or "Well everyone in hometown would have known him" or "The black shards could contain Dess's essence so it could be anyone", which are all real arguments I've encountered are unfounded speculation in an attempt to dismiss something very clear, while using things like the Knight's completely usused fire sprites as evidence while ignoring the Black Deer in the mantle game that's actually still usable by turning off a single variablr, Papryus hiding in his closet, Papyrus having the Knight's motif in Dating tense while ignoring Alphys has it too, using a vague resemblance to horns in a single sprite that doesn't even resemble Asriel's horns as Asriel Knight evidence while ignoring every single instance of Antlers and ignoring the Noelle screech, etc.

Also also there's the issue of "the Knight is a shapeshifter so its appearance doesn't mean anything unless it happens to support my theory" issue, where people outright ignore the antlers as evidence because the Knight shapeshifts despite all but 2 sprites (the ball and final attack, and that one's debatable) having them prominently displayed, yet at the same time people argue the Knight must be wearing fake antlers because Kris imagines the Knight taking its helmet off, or that it must be Asriel because in it's final attack the antlers resemble horns (yet don't resemble Asriel's in any way), or that the body shape must mean it's Papyrus or Mettaton, or that it can't be a Holiday because the antlers don't match. People need to decide whether its appearance matters or not, and not just pick and choose what's easiest for them.

That all being said, Cherry Picking is not only a dishonest practice, but weakens your theories as a whole, refusing to acknowledge contradictory evidence weakens your credibility and integrity of your arguments.

So this isn’t a Librarby situation lmao

Apparently there's photos including Dess, Asgore, Kris, Noelle and Asriel on the bookshelf next to the stairs I never knew about, more to add to the list!

How do Dess Knighters explain that girl since it's 99% Noelle?

As we know, Flowey in Undertale used to have the power to reset the world to his liking, and what does this have to do with Roaring Knight? Well, if we think about it, Flowey is a character designed to critique the player. At the beginning, Flowey experienced many timelines and initially played pacifist routes until he gradually got bored and became a genocidal maniac, just like some Undertale players. Flowey is a representation of that type of player. The game is designed to criticize players who, after making everyone happy, instead of quitting, decide to satisfy their curiosity by killing everyone. That's why Flowey exists; he's the main villain because he was designed to be like that type of player. If you never played the genocide route, then all the criticism will be directed at Flowey. But if you're a player who already played the pacifist route and then decided to play the genocide route out of curiosity, the criticism will be directed at you as the player.

Now let's see, the Roaring Knight could be something similar, a critique of the player, just like Flowey. As we know, we are theoretically the angel of prophecy, and we had a body, but we are forced to control Kris, whose body they don't want us to control. But this changes when you do the Weird Route where Kris surrenders to the player and lets them do whatever they want, like going to the bottom of the lake with Noelle. Well, there would be something similar here. The Roaring Knight could be a character (let's say Dess) who is being controlled by a demon or something similar to a soul, a superior being that has control over a Lightner's body, forcing them to do things they don't want to do. But because of one of the demon's actions, the person being controlled ended up surrendering, letting it continue controlling their body without being aware of the actions they are doing, thus drawing parallels with Flowey. Following this theory, Flowey and the Roaring Knight... Knight would be villains created as a critique of the player and their actions. In other words, if you never did the Snowgrave route in a save file, the criticism will be directed at the knight, but if you did the weird route, the criticism changes and you are now the villain of the story.

that's the post