Before we jump into Deltarune: Chapter 5, I have a couple threads to tie up. First, I did finally beat the Roaring Knight, both with and without the Shadow Mantle, and I have a fun story to share regarding it. Remember how I said one of the three reasons I gave up on it was because the music was driving me up a wall? This line I wrote in the last part...

I did not care for "The Stains of Time" yadda yadda I love "It Has To Be This Way." That is my answer to that statement.

... gave me an idea. One November night, months after I'd given up, I copied the save that had the Mantle from my laptop to my desktop, then went into the game's files and replaced "Black Knife" (knight.ogg) with "It Has To Be This Way." Then I fired up Deltarune just to see if it worked, otherwise I was going to mute the game and play the song in Media Player. But no, simply replacing the sound file worked and it was glorious.

And I one-shot the Knight.

Oh, it wasn't a perfect attempt by any means, but it was reasonably smooth. Nobody got knocked out and I only used a handful of healing items, although the final attack which I obviously had no experience with slapped me around a fair bit (didn't help that I forgot about the speed boost). I didn't even get clipped that hard during the hall of swords attacks, but then I went through the patch notes and saw they finally fixed the hitboxes in that attack.

And if anybody wants to tell me I just suck... yeah, I do but fuck off, I beat Spamton NEO and the Hammer of Justice on my first tries.

Then I went into a file that didn't have the Mantle and in fact never touched the Mantle's sidequest at all on, and two-shot it.

I am shocked at how well it works. And yeah, of course I then had to fight Spamton NEO to "I'm My Own Master Now." I went with "Red Sun" for the Hammer of Justice but I'm not sure what made me connect the two other than "I'M FUCKING INVINCIBLE/OLD!" and "the reptile tail ripped from its back." And unfortunately for me, the most appropriate song for Jevil is "The Stains of Time" and... ugh, the things I do for you people.

Yes, that was the cleanest Hammer of Justice run I got after, like, fifteen attempts. And no, I still don't have a grip on the second Jevilsknife attack. Shut up.

Second, I screwed up something fierce with Eram and I don't mean how "Eram" doesn't seem to be its canon name, if it even has one. I was so focused on the voice on the monitor taunting you like Intellectron that the completely obvious parallel to Eram flew right under my nose: it's Sir Ulrik from Joe the Barbarian. Yeah, I also got tripped up by his similarities to the Roaring Knight, but like Eram Sir Ulrik is a flying, tattered cloak, is constantly on fire, and lobs explosives.

The cats Eram spawns in during the fight may even be based on the zombie rats King Death raises in the final battle within the Hypogean Labyrinth.

Now, the obligatory section roundup:

Knight of the Fox

Son of the Knight of the Fox

Son of the Knight of the Fox - Part 2

Son of the Knight of the Fox - Part 3

Son of the Knight of the Fox - Part 4

After Part 4 I decided to take a break from Morrison's books, and if you'd like to interpret that as "give my brain time to heal after The Invisibles," well, you're not wrong. And hey, Fox announced the release date for Chapters 3 and 4 three months in advance, that gave me time to read a few more books in preparation. But then he dropped the release date for Chapter 5 only two weeks before its release, while I was in the middle of reading Assassination Classroom to boot, so I was caught totally off guard. I really only had time to replay Chapter 4 on the file I copied over from my laptop to beat the Roaring Knight with the Shadow Mantle, so I didn't have a chance to read any more books before it released. I also wanted to replay Magi Nation and see what nuggets I could find in that (my cart could probably stand to have the battery replaced, anyway).

As much as I think updating it as I found more stuff to talk about contributed to Part 3 being the weakest of this project, I'm going to have to handle this page the same way. Updating it piecemeal instead of dropping everything in one lump several months down the line will also give me something to do around this site when I'm not updating the Review Quickies, and I'm running out of Morrison books, anyway. If Chapter 6 is released separately from Chapter 7 I'll go ahead and add it here, and depending on how much there is to talk about, I may even use Chapter 7 as the Closing Thoughts section of this page.

I have to confess I did not pick up on a lot of parallels to Grant Morrison's books in Chapter 5 and certainly nothing on the level of the fight against the Candlemaker at the end of Chapter 4. Maybe this chapter pulls from a book I haven't gotten to yet, or The Invisibles and you're probably tired of me banging on about how incomprehensible I found that book. Heck, it feels like Fox pulled back on Grant Morrison to really start leaning into Berserk, which would be fitting given how much this chapter pulls from Japanese culture and media. And Batman: The Animated Series, but we'll get there when we get there.

I also had some trouble with this section because - and I've seen other people have this complaint - Chapter 5 doesn't so much advance the story as pave a stretch of road for the story to come down later. Fox did say he wanted Chapter 5 to be more of a light-hearted, fluffy chapter before shit hits the fan in Chapter 6 which is probably going to end with the Roaring happening, but most of Chapter 5's story is hazy glimpses at what's to come instead of anything definitive. Heck, the chapter opens with a cryptic scene of Kris coming home from doing something all night without the SOUL and looking very sick, and we're going to be waiting a while to find out what that was about.

Yes, I know now that you can clean up the blood stain with Susie in Chapter 4.

After helping Susie get ready for her date with Noelle (though it's up to you whether you want to give her a proper makeover or have her cosplay as Temu Scrooge McDuck), you get a couple more lore bits. Contrary to most Spamton/Tenna animatics on YouTube depicting Spamton as the snake of the duo, Tenna seems to have been the one who fucked Spamton over. And if you have all four Shadow Crystals, Seam tells you what they are.

An idea I toyed with up to now is that the Shadow Crystals are possessed by someone or something important to whoever was used to create the fountain, be it the "Knight" of that world or whoever the Knight used as a conduit. Spamton did not have the Crystal, it was in the NEO machine, so if Noelle was used to create the Cyber World fountain then she could have also been the Lightner who drew the NEO machine. Likewise, Gerson had the fourth crystal because his son, Alvin, created the fountain. And, well, Kris obviously has some connection with the Knight.

Of course the big snag I hit in this idea is, what connection would Rouxls Kaard have had with Jevil? If he wasn't the conduit, who was close to Jevil? The only person with any real connection to Jevil was Seam, who became emotionally distant after they had to imprison Jevil beneath Card Castle. I guess it's possible for Seam to have been the conduit, crazy fucker clearly knows more than they're letting on.

This chapter's Dark World takes place in Asgore's flower store (we'll talk about that moment with Kris later). The first section is a blatant nostalgia trip back to Chapter 1, but instead of a chubby blue Jack of Spades, the guest star we're constantly bumping into is anime pretty boy Flowery.

He claims to be Asgore's old college buddy, and with all the adoration and gifts he showers Asgore with I started to think he was a Darkner based on a man crush Asgore had back in the day. What took me too long to realize - in that I should have noticed this in his first line of dialogue but it took me, like, his third appearance to pick up on - is Flowery has a Lightner's portrait.

Yeah, I bet a lot of people shat themselves when they saw the cowboy.

Ralsei doesn't trust him but Susie is enamored with him, and personally I was in Ralsei's corner. If Ralsei is supposed to be Kris' idealized BFF, Flowery is trying way too hard to be Asgore's idealized BFF. And his determination in keeping Kris away from Asgore raised some suspicions.

"So, Codie, what Grant Morrison nuggets you got for us this time?" Actually, up to this point the DC story I was most reminded of was the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Perchance to Dream," the one I mentioned way back in Part 2 where the Mad Hatter traps Batman in a dream world. According to Jervis Bruce has everything he wanted in his dream world but as the viewer, you know the whole thing is a sham. Yet all you can do is watch as Bruce starts to fall for it, until something makes him realize it's all a lie. And boy is he pissed when he gets out.

But okay, Flowery's intentions probably aren't as sinister as the Mad Hatter's and he's just a total tryhard. That gets thrown into question towards the end of the Garden area, when he effectively tells the Lancer Fan Club "All right, you've had your fun, now get lost."

Of course they can't just leave. Besides the threat of the Knight, an extra fountain only brings the world closer to the Roaring. So our heroes pursue, bumping into two more colored humans named Seth and Aqua and obtaining a magic feather that totally isn't based on the Roc's Feather. When they bump into Flowery again he asks Kris to leave for Asgore's sake a second time.

Flowery asking Kris to leave the Dark World reminds me of a major story moment late into Magi Nation, but I'll save that for when I replay the game and give it its own section.

During the climb to the castle, Ralsei explains Flowery and the other colored humans we see are the domed flowers from Asgore's shop. They've been given human form in the Dark World, and they're trying to create a perfect world for Asgore.

And hey, we've finally got our first Grant Morrison parallel here. The Garden area of the Dark World is the first floor of Asgore's shop, and Flower Castle is the second floor. Wouldn't that would mean the Cliffs are Asgore's stairs?

At the gates of the castle, Flowery asks Kris for the third time to leave Asgore to his dream.

But this time, when the group refuses, Flowery calls in Asgore, who shoves Kris out of the Dark World.

As if Flowery is suggesting, uh, Kris' presence hurts Asgore and if they actually care about him they'll voluntarily leave the world before somebody else forces them out...

Okay, ever since Chapter 3 some things have been creeping me out, and I don't just mean Ragged Robin's brother and whatever the fuck is going on in Chapter 5's Snowgrave route. Parts of the cutscene after the Tenna fight almost felt like a response to my meltdown at the end of Part 3, with all the talk of toys and being wanted and using friendship to prank somebody, and Susie telling Tenna "You wanna know what I think" is awfully similar to what she says to Spamton here before she proposes messing with the Addisons. But in the Autumn 2024 newsletter, Fox said Chapter 3 had been content complete and translated into Japanese for months, meaning that scene had been wrapped up long before I wrote that.

I did not watch the Undertale 10th Anniversary stream because I was still too miffed over the whole "player villain" thing, but I picked up a few bits and pieces secondhand. One of these things was the scene of Spamton in Grillby's, deep-throating a giant french fry, and when I saw that I was like, wait, did Fox find my essay about why he needs to make himself the game's big bad, where I made that comment about taking Spamton to a burger joint? I'm also creeped out by Spamton's talk of an adult booster seat (back when it was just Animal Man and Deltarune, I said "Talk about canon all you want, half the playerbase is always going to want to put Spamton in a high seat and give him a smash cake") and a cat in response to picking "Catsup" over "Ketchup." But Spamton used to go to a grill with the Addisons after work, Baby Salesman is an entire genre of Spamton fanart, and cats the lifeblood of the Internet, plus there's something weird going on with cats in the game, like the Cheshire Cat you keep seeing and the cats in the Mike minigames.

Fox also made a comment about how original the color green was, and I looked into the frequent use of the color green in Deltarune in Part 4... but green was heavily featured in Homestuck as well and I uploaded that only a few days before the anniversary event. I'm pretty sure he had more important things to do than read the insane ramblings of one person gobbing into the river of Deltarune theories.

Besides, this all hinges on the idea that out of the fifty or so people who have read this, Toby Fucking Fox would be one of them. And the only way I can imagine he has is if he either occasionally checked to see if anyone caught on to Grant Morrison's influence on him, which I'm still the only person who has said anything about, or had Twitter alerts set up to notify him if anyone ever put "Deltarune" and "Grant Morrison" in the same tweet. There was a period where every time he tweeted I responded with a random image from a Morrison comic that paralleled Deltarune (Zenith acquiring Chimera, the Candlemaker saying "I can do anything!", etc.) but I wasn't actually expecting him to see any of that in the sea of responses he gets. I was doing it more as a way of printing receipts, so if somebody pulled a MatPat, hijacked my research, and made a video trying to claim credit for the discovery I could point to those to tweets to show I found it first (yes, I can be a petty bitch) and if Fox or anyone else saw them and got curious, well, that'd just be a bonus. I did once tweet to Nelnalium about Lennox and Lanino and since she doesn't get nearly the volume of tweets Fox does she could have taken it to Fox and asked "Nani the fuck?" but that was after Chapter 3 and 4 dropped.

Oh God, that would mean Toby Fox knows about Sans and the Great Mighty Poo.

Toby, if you're reading this and you want me to know you're reading it, have one of the Addisons allude to being reminded of Spamton by a piece of penguin merchandise they saw in Seam's store. Not the Batman villain, of course, the actual bird. It doesn't have to be a blanket, it can be a plushie, a mug, socks, pajamas, a pencil topper, a painting based on a child's crayon drawing, a night light, a little inflatable punching bag desk toy, even a set of drink coasters, whatever you want as long as it's black and white and has a pointy nose (and preferably G-rated, but I can't stop you if you want to go with a vibrator). It'll be our little in-joke.

Anyway, Kris and Susie get back into the shop through the back door, and Seth drops a bombshell (well, on me, at least).

Welp, there goes my whole "each Dark World is created by a different character" theory! I'll explore this revelation later on, when I delve back into Final Fantasy X.

It's castle crashing time, and one thing that jumped at me about the castle and indeed the entire chapter was how many freaking foxes there are around the place.

Obviously I can't say this is because of Grant Morrison's own obsession with foxes because it could just be a cheeky in-joke, and the kitsune is one of the more famous Japanese yokai (and yes, "kitsune," as as being the shapeshifting trickster yokai, is the Japanese word for "fox"). Could always be a little of all three.

Incidentally, has Toby Fox ever said what his favorite Pokemon is? Cause I can see it being Vulpix or Ninetails.

Asgore is also going around the castle, gathering notes he's written over the years. It turns out he's known about the Dark World for years and has been cataloging information like Charlie Day in that meme Deltarune itself makes a joke about with Mike, but when he sits down to read his notes he hits an unexpected roadblock.

You know that "something" in "Perchance to Dream" I keep mentioning that makes Bruce realize he's dreaming? It's when he tries to read a newspaper and it's total gibberish.

This is because, as he tells the fake Batman when he confronts him in the bell tower, you can't read in a dream.

"But wait!" I hear you say, "There are plenty of instances of legible words in the Dark World! The Cyber World is full of them! And Tenna's quizzes! And the panes of the prophecy!" Right you are, but these are words that originated in the Dark World. Asgore's papers were written in the Light World and are being brought down into the Dark World, hence why they're getting scrambled.

Before I start thinking too much about the possibility that Batman: The Animated Series is another thing I'm going to need to start researching, let's quickly turn our attention back to Flowery, who keeps popping up to tease Ralsei and hint that he also knows what's going on and how the world works.

This is where the Berserk influence I mentioned at the beginning really starts to come through. Yeah, for anybody who tried to read Berserk - or, God forbid, that awful Grunbeld novel - and only made it to Wyald before writing the whole thing off as an edgy teenage power fantasy that's just trying to be as offensive as possible for the sake of being offensive, the idea of Deltarune pulling from that must be pretty jarring. Usually when people make a kid-friendly Berserk it's as a joke.

To give my own opinion on Wyald and how the various adaptations handle him, I get what Miura was trying to do with him, but I also get why every adaptation of Berserk so far has given him the boot and everybody's fine with it. I understand why people think he's way too edgy and does little more than feed into the misconception that Berserk is just "that hyperviolent manga where everybody gets raped." I also understand why people think he's redundant and easily removed from the story. He breaks Guts' sword, leaving him at a disadvantage during the Eclipse... but there are plenty of other ways to have Guts lose his sword. He shows the Band of the Hawk how dangerous a single Apostle is, and thus how hopelessly fucked they were when they were surrounded by Apostles during the Eclipse... but they'd already learned that from their encounter with Zodd.

There are a few things I do believe Wyald contributes to the story. First, he shows us how depraved Apostles can get, you know, before Ganishka comes in and declares "Hold my Man-Made Behelit." Zodd had a sense of honor and took no pleasure in killing the weak, praised Guts for managing to injure him in their fight and aided him in his fight against Boscogn, and was so impressed with Guts surviving the Eclipse he agreed to a cease fire with the Skull Knight. Even the Slug Count refused to sacrifice his daughter to the Godhand. Wyald is 100% completely irredeemable. Second, he completely humiliates Griffith in front of the Band, driving the wedge between them deeper and making selling them out to the Godhand that much easier, plus the scrawny human form he leaves behind after Zodd kills him parallels Griffith's state at the time.

Finally, and what I think is his biggest contribution to the story, is he gives Guts and the Band of the Hawk their first glimpse of the Abyss. We, the reader, already saw the Abyss at the end of the Black Swordsman arc when the Slug Count opened the way, but for the Band of the Hawk, Wyald getting dragged into the Abyss is a big "... what the hell was that?" moment. But you can't really tone him down when the whole point of him is to show you how disgusting Apostles can get, so I guess it's easier to just cut him.

A major theme through Berserk is defying fate and persevering in the face of impossible odds. Guts' fate was allegedly sealed when he received the Brand of Sacrifice, but he has spent the two or three years since (or thirty if you go by how long the series has been running in our world) doing his damnedest to thwart that fate, fighting off demons and all other manner of evil the brand attracts. And if he is fated to one day join the rest in Band of the Hawk in the Abyss for all eternity, then he is determined to take as many Apostles down with him as he can.

Sure, Dispatch will tell you "you make your own destiny" isn't the most original theme. It also pops up in Morrison's works from time to time.

This is why I can't help but facepalm when I see people debating over whether Susie or Noelle is the girl of the prophecy, completely missing the point that it doesn't matter who the prophecy says is the hero because, as Gerson repeatedly stresses, fuck the prophecy.

But the irony here is Flowery is fated to lose, and there's nothing he can do about it because that's how Fox has written the story. Flowery cannot thwart divine providence.

Now, before things start heating up with Flowery, let's talk about the secret boss.

Chapter 5 is the first time I encountered the secret boss on my first time through (I botched the concert minigame my first time playing Chapter 3 and got locked out of the second board of the Shadow Mantle sidequest), and without having them spoiled to me. I was playing Hades when Chapter 2 dropped and I didn't get around to it for a couple months, so I got Spamton spoiled to me long before that. And I probably could have found the Hammer of Justice on my own if I'd done a little more exploring, but I got impatient. Plus I didn't realize he got locked off if you don't beat him before sealing the first fountain.

Okay, I looked up one of the foxes - the one hiding among the wave of paws - to unlock that one door to get one of the Pink Coins because this didn't count, I guess. And then there was an eleventh coin outside the boss's door anyway, and then I later found out I forgot to recollect the coin in the room with the Shinobeetles throwing shurikens at you after resetting because I didn't collect all the evidence for the Phoenix Wright tribute and forgot about Acting on Blue. Just multiple layers of me being a dumbass here. But I managed to not see the boss until I encountered them in-game.

In the leadup to Chapter 5 I threw out two possibilities for Chapter 5's secret boss: Flex Mentallo or Poison Ivy. Flex Mentallo would have been a Charles Atlas ad from one of the comics on Asgore's television. Poison Ivy, well, this borders on shitpost theory territory but hear me out.

In the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Almost Got 'Im" five Batman villains meet at a seedy club to play cards and share stories about how each of them almost defeated Batman: the Joker, Two-Face, the Penguin, Poison Ivy, and Killer Croc.

If you've ever seen that clip of Killer Croc saying "I threw a rock at him!" followed by several other villains looking at him disappointedly, that's this episode. But Killer Croc is actually Batman in disguise, so the Dark Knight is also in there. Starting at the Joker and going counter-clockwise, we've got:

Joker = Jevil
Penguin = Spamton
Batman = Roaring Knight
Killer Croc = Hammer of Justice

Poison Ivy is next at the table, and she fits the plant theme of the chapter. Alternatively you could say Two-Face is the Roaring Knight but that's not based on much more than both being black and white and possibly having dual personalities, and this shot of the Knight in the climax of Chapter 4. But that still leaves Poison Ivy as the last person at the table. So when the tunnel leading to the secret boss' door was full of pink roses, and then Orange threatened to tell on me to her sister who introduced herself as "the strongest flower," I was like, shit, is this actually going to be a plant woman? Don't tell me I called a second boss on a total asspull.

And then out stepped Mew Mew Kissy Cutie.

Or Pink as she's called here. Pink tries to pass herself off as one of Asgore's flowers, but she's really a doll Asgore has and I am genuinely thankful we see her Light World form otherwise I would have had some questions. Yeah, don't think I don't know about the Spamton body pillow, or how the scene with Tenna and the Pipis plays out if you don't have a Spamton item, Fox. I'm no prude, I got my sex education from The Golden Girls after all, but the idea of Asgore having THAT kind of doll is as wrong as Cyan's porno magazine in the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VI. The man's still traumatized from the loss of his wife and child, why would he have that instead of Edgar? Or Setzer? Even Strago having a dirty magazine in the style of Master Roshi or Lou Pickles makes more sense than Cyan.

If Spamton NEO was created in response to the lack of a Mettaton NEO fight in Undertale, Pink is here to give PC players a taste of the Switch-exclusive Mad Mew Mew boss as well as upgrade her into a proper superboss. I made it to the third phase on my first try, but after I kept wiping on the third phase (if not sooner, RNGesus really likes to randomly a sandal up your ass in this fight) and knowing there was one more phase after it, I decided I was too brainrotted to keep track of all the shit she was throwing out and gave up on her to go wrap up the main story. After watching a couple videos I realized I was vastly overcomplicating some of her moves and underestimating Share Food, and got her on my second try the next day (her fourth phase is impossible to lose to unless you really go out of your way to self-sabotage). The Bomberman attacks where you're essentially being asked to solve a Professor Layton puzzle in the time span of a Wario Ware microgame can still fuck off, though.

Like the Hammer of Justice, Pink can only be defeated mercifully but where she differs from the other four bosses is she only gives you a Shadow Crystal after the fight. You're then given access to an area where, in a blatant tribute to the Sealed Weapons from Final Fantasy V, you can pick up to three items from a pool of six in exchange for the remaining nine Pink Coins, plus a scarf Ralsei refuses to wear after you spend all nine coins. This also takes that idea I toyed with about the Shadow Crystal items being based on the sacred treasures from Seven Soldiers of Victory and chucks it out the window.

You've already guessed that I went with "A Stranger I Remain" for Pink. And if anybody wants the music files so they can try this for themselves, here you go ("It Has to Be This Way" is an extended version I got from this video, the rest were ripped from the soundtrack and edited to loop. And obviously make backups of the original files before messing with them):

The Stains of Time (joker.ogg)
I'm My Own Master Now (spamton_neo_mix_ex_wip.ogg)
It Has to Be This Way (knight.ogg)
Red Sun (ch4_extra_boss.ogg)
A Stranger I Remain (pink.ogg)

Throughout the fight she starts speaking in two voices and arguing with herself, and it's revealed she's a Darkner possessed by a Lightner. The conflict between her two selves causes her to start to break down, and the fight culminates in you getting the Darkner body and the Lightner soul to line up. Doom Patrol and Cliff with his rogue body proposed the question of whether the mind controls the body or the body controls the mind. Here, Fox gives us his answer to that: neither. The mind and the body need to work together.

So yeah, this fight is Fox really trying to put an end to that "You suck for controlling Kris" theory. Yet you still get shit like this where people treat the SOUL as a nuisance to Kris and any time they act without you it's them pwning you. Gotta get those rageclicks somehow, I guess.

And it goes without saying this works a metaphor for any relationship. Like when four friends get together but each of them has a different idea for how to spend the night: one want to go bowling, one wants to go to Dave and Buster's and win ducks out of the claw machine, one wants to stay home and play Beerio Kart, and the fourth is down for anything as long as they can get pizza. One person can't have their way each time, but that doesn't mean they're an asshole for wanting something, ever. The four of them have to work things out and agree to go to Dave and Buster's this week and bowling next week, or they'll grab a pizza then come home and play Beerio Kart. And maybe one of them's a teetotaler and has to tell the others "Nah, I'll just sit back and just watch the rest of you guys get shitfaced, I don't want to throw up on Justin's rug again."

But let's get to the question I know you're thinking. "So, Codie, which character from a Grant Morrison comic is Pink based on?" Honestly, unless she's supposed to be Magneto and Xorn, I'm at a loss. To try to give you the tl;dr here, some time prior to Morrison's New X-Men Magneto gathered up millions of mutants and formed Genosha, his own island nation with blackjack and hookers. I guess things were going fine with Genosha, I haven't read any of the X-Men arcs that featured it, but the second issue of Morrison's New X-Men ends with Cassandra Nova using the Sentinels to nuke Genosha, killing every mutant on the island including Magneto.

After the X-Men think they've defeated Cassandra Nova (who has actually switched bodies with Professor X) they learn of Xorn, a mutant born with a star in his head that grants him immense healing powers who's being imprisoned in China. After the X-Men bust him out and he helps them defeat Cassandra Nova proper, Xorn takes over Xavier's special education class and even uses his powers to cure Xavier's paralysis.

Fast forward to the last quarter of Morrison's run, and it's revealed Xorn is Magneto in disguise. He somehow survived Genosha and is out for revenge, and part of his plan was to infiltrate Xavier's school and turn his own students against him. Yeah, this is that "turning Magneto back into a straight-up bad guy after years of Magneto being slowly worked into a sympathetic anti-villain or even an anti-hero" thing that pissed off X-Men fans I mentioned back in my look at Final Crisis.

Wait, when the fuck did Magneto gain healing powers? He didn't, it was NANOMACHINES, SON.

But in another twist, Magneto crafted Xorn so well that he became more than just a disguise for Magneto, but an entire alternate personality that's still chilling in Magneto's head.

Likewise, Pink is split in two personalities, one associated with pink and purple and the other an off-gray. And she uses the Muffet mechanics where you stick to certain points on the board like a magnet.

Yeah, I admit this isn't the what the fuck?? the Mad Hatter and the Telephone Avatar are. Maybe I'll have a Sir Ulrik "Oh, wait, DUH!" moment down the line, but this is the best I have so far and like the Roaring Knight being based on Overman with Batman as the connecting thread, Fox himself would have to confirm this is what he was going for.

So now it's just Flowery and the other flowers. In the Light World all they could do was watch as Asgore's life fell apart, and the Dark World has given them the chance to create a paradise for him, to thank him for everything he's done for them.

Only as you climb into the final part of the castle, it doesn't seem like Asgore is very happy here.

And there's a catch with sealing this fountain. Lancer, Queen, Tenna (if you don't give him away), Jack, and all the others could come live in Castle Town when their worlds' fountains were sealed. Well, not Gerson but he was a special case. But because the seven flowers are living things that need specific care, they cannot survive in Castle Town. Oh, they could come there, chill out with Swatch and the Mizzles for a bit, but they'd eventually wither and die. So if only so many Dark Worlds can exist, Flowery questions why their fountain should be the one to get sealed and not the Castle Town one.

So, uh... going back the weird stuff that keeps popping up in recent chapters, Flowery's wording here is creepily similar to what I said about the fucked up implications of MatPat's last Deltarune theory: "I guess MatPat believes Fox is willing to snuff out a thousand dreams to fulfill his own, like he's fucking Griffith sacrificing the Band of the Hawk to the Godhand."

Along with Griffith and the Eclipse (I'm not going to elaborate on the Eclipse because it's one of the most famous moments in manga history, and there are plenty of people who can do it more justice than I could), Flowery is channeling the end of Animal Man, with all those alternate characters whose worlds were wiped out in the Crisis demanding to know why they're not allowed to exist in the new continuity.

So Flowery gives our heroes an ultimatum: if you believe your fountain is the one that should remain open, prove your dream is stronger than ours.

And things actually go kind of bad for our heroes. During the fight Flowery seperates Kris from Susie and Ralsei, and even if you pull off the final blow, Kris winds up on their face while Flowery is ready for Round 2. He only backs down when Asgore finally sees what's going on and asks "Dude, what the fuck are you doing??"

Seeing Kris injured causes Asgore to start ruminating on the tragedy that made him obsessed with the Dark World, but doesn't elaborate on what this tragedy was. Some people speculate it's because Kris was there when it happened and already knows about it, so why would Asgore have reason to explain it and dredge up those memories, but this is what I was talking about with Chapter 5 being like watching a construction crew lay out piles of bricks and cement bags and discuss their blueprints, but before they have a chance to do any actual brickwork the quitting bell rings and everybody goes home. And until I know if this disaster was when the Dark World in the bunker was created or when Dess disappeared (assuming the two events weren't one and the same) and which event led to the bunker getting sealed, I don't know if I should compare it to when King Death fell from the sky and was subsequently imprisoned in the Hypogean Labyrinth by the Iron Knight, or when the Iron Knight returned to the Labyrinth ten years later and was taken by King Death.

I just realized I never explained what the Hypogean Labyrinth is. It's the spot where King Death crash-landed when he fell into the Iron Kingdom, and it's this towering mass of black rectangles.

But each one of those rectangles is a door, and they all lead to death.

And I can't help but be reminded of it whenever Deltarune brings up its own mysterious door with lots of black, geometric shapes.

Yeah, the army being ambushed by King Death's zombies is another instance of eyes being equated to death and destruction, which I overlooked last time.

An idea I have is, like King Death, the Devil fell into the world long ago and was imprisoned in the bunker by Carol, Undyne, and Asgore with their three codes. Years later Kris and Dess managed to get the codes and open the bunker to see what was in there and the Devil took Dess and left a piece of itself in Kris. Or maybe, if the final prophecy does involve Noelle getting killed and Dess learned of it, she thought if she became the Roaring Knight she'd be in a place to subvert the prophecy and roped Kris into her plan. Either way, Asgore did not kick Kris out of the Dark World earlier because he didn't want them interfering with his perfect world, he kicked them out because he knows the Dark World is fucking dangerous.

That liquid mirror/angel/Dreamtime fragment/Wave Existence/whatever the fuck Oppenheimer summoned into the world over in The Invisibles is also held in some secret facility. And the idea of somebody being imprisoned in the shadows under the world makes me think of Magi Nation, but again, I'm saving that for its own section.

Asgore thanks the flowers for the gesture, but it's not what he really needs and would only be treating the symptoms of his problems, not the source. He needs to go back to the Light World and set things straight, and when everybody comes to this understanding the flowers agree to let Kris seal the fountain. Earlier Flowery called this world Asgore's dream but this was never his dream, it was the flowers'.

And as Highwater would point out, their dream isn't really coming to an end. It still lives on through us, and comes back any time somebody replays this chapter or draws fanart.

But just as you seal the fountain, the Roaring Knight creates another one so they can fly in and abduct Asgore. Flowery tries to rescue Asgore, but the Knight cuts him down and escapes with Asgore.

This is something I did notice before, but somehow it got lost in the shuffle of everything else I was trying to keep track of, so it's not "How did I not notice this before?" but rather "How did I forget to include this before?" While the body of the Roaring Knight's speed form (for lack of a better thing to call it) is pure Deathcoat and you could compare its horns to the trail of smoke coming out of their helmets, its head looks like the Beast of Darkness.

Before you Berserk fans eviscerate me, yes, ackshually that's Guts in the Astral World, enveloped by the the Beast of Darkness while under the Berserker Armor's influence, but that's the best image for comparison I could find. For those not familiar with Berserk, the Beast of Darkness is Guts' shadow, the embodiment of his bloodlust and rage, although some people speculate it's a ghost haunting the Dragonslayer, Guts' giant sword. At several points in the story it appears to taunt him and vows to eventually consume him.

Wait, is the Knight wearing the Berserker Armor?

Ralsei tries to treat Flowery's wounds but they're far too severe. As Flowery dies he explains plants are sort of between a Lightner and a Darkner. If you want to use more Berserk terminology, if Lightners are being of the Physical World and Darkners beings of the Astral World, plants exist in the Interstice. And just like how Guts is more aware of the workings of the Astral World because of his branding (well, on top of certain revelations in recent chapters), plants are more aware of what's going on in the Dark World than Lightners.

Oh damn, this really is going to be the Eclipse, isn't it.

After Kris seals the Knight's fountain, Susie runs out of the room to try to find something to save Flowery. Kris finds Asgore's code to the shelter among Flowery's soil and almost destroys it, but unlike with the guitar Susie comes back in time to rescue it.

Is there any real-life significance to September 15th, 199-something? I know Spamton is obsessed with 1997, but Chapter 2 released September 17th. The first issue of The Invisibles has a cover date of September 1994, but I can't find information on the exact date it was released. September 15th isn't even the date marked when Lennox kills Buddy's family.

Or I'm just looking for a connection that isn't there and September 15th is the date the tragedy Asgore keeps talking about happened, "Don't forget DL-6!" style. It wouldn't be the first blatant Phoenix Wright homage in Chapter 5.

Also, if Dess was swallowed by the Dark World when she and Kris opened the bunker, then maybe Kris isn't trying keep the codes away from Susie just because the voice on the phone is telling them to, but because they don't want Susie getting taken by the Devil, too.

Chapter 5 ends with you walking Susie back to Castle Town (or if you refuse, Kris shoving you into a balloon and walking her back themself), and Susie telling Kris they need to get Noelle in on what's happening, which I don't think Catti would be happy to hear.

"Wait, wasn't this chapter supposed to end with something getting set on fire?"

Yeah, and Ralsei being a total grouch to Flowery does its best to make you think it's going to end with Ralsei burning down Asgore's shop. But unless one giant shuriken somehow counts as "a vast garden," I think Fox is channeling his inner Joker and fucking with theorists. Or to give it its proper name, Toby Fox Troll Logic™.

Seeing as how my analysis of Deltarune: Chapter 5 already had more to do with Berserk than Grant Morrison, this is just an assortment of stuff I overlooked before and ideas I want to put pins in. Maybe down the line I can form these ideas into something more cohesive and less of a Berserk nick-knack drawer.

Spamton mentions the "deep abyss" when he's telling you about the NEO machine in the basement of Queen's mansion. Again, "Deep Abyss" has brackets around it, making me wonder if it's supposed to be a reference to, if not Berserk's Abyss, something at least.

Following the idea that the Roaring Knight might be wearing something akin to the Berserker Armor, Deltarune makes a few references to "roots." The music under Queen's mansion is called "Digital Roots," the music in the last dungeon of the Shadow Mantle game is a chiptune version of "Digital Roots" called "BIT ROOTS," and there's a prophecy that just says "Roots."

Flora stores the Berserker Armor under the magic tree she lives in. You know, among its roots.

And considering Flora's house is referred to as a mansion, it makes me wonder if the NEO Machine being stored under Queen's mansion pulls from the Berserker Armor.

The Armor itself is a magical, basically cursed artifact that brings out the wearer's id, if that's the correct term to use. It changes appearances based on said id and the last person to use it was the Skull Knight, so when Guts first steps out wearing it, the helmet looks like a skull. But when it attunes to Guts, or rather the Beast of Darkness, the helmet turns into a wolf head.

In one of the last chapters Miura did before his death in May 2021, Guts meets the armor's maker, a dwarf named Hanaar, who activates something in the armor that forces Guts to witness the last moments of its previous owner. Again, that was the Skull Knight, who calls the vision "the end of a once foolish king and the beginning of a wraith wandering through an endless night."

There are moments throughout Deltarune that foreshadow Kris losing their hand, like the guy waking up without a hand in Blood Crushers 2 (on top of being a Doom Patrol reference) and an easter egg involving the capsule machine in Chapter 3. A little over two weeks after Chapter 5's release, a cutscene was added where Pink warns you of cats biting peoples' hands.

Oh.

There's also the time Guts gets overtaken by the Beast of Darkness and bites Casca, and Guts calls Ganishka "a mad dog who bites his master."

Now for the Ganishka/Titan Bonus Round! Susie and Gerson teaming up to blow a hole in the Titan's face and/or Susie carrying Kris into the Titan might be based on Guts and Zodd teaming up to blow a hole through Ganishka's face when he's in his mist form (this is different from his Shiva form).

Another example of Berserk using eyes to symbolize, if not destruction then Hell which I overlooked is Ganishka in his Shiva form has hundreds, maybe even thousands of eyes, no doubt a reflection of the Idea of Evil being covered in eyes.

By the way, there were plenty of times throughout Berserk where I had to stop and take a breath, like "adult attack," Mozgus' torture chamber, and the troll cavern. And yeah, I'm sure the only reason the Eclipse didn't destroy me is because I knew about it going in. But this scene of Ganishka first emerging as Shiva genuinely made me almost throw up.

The Winter 2025 Deltarune newsletter included some behind the scenes content for Chapters 3 and 4, including concept art of the Titan by Gigi DG. This raises questions of whether the Titan was designed by Fox or Gigi DG, but the page also includes concept art of Tenna by both Fox and Gigi DG, so I'm inclined to believe either Fox gave Gigi DG a rough idea of the Titan to clean up, or the two went back and forth until they got the final design. That, or Gigi DG somehow recreated the Candlemaker without input from Fox. But what sticks out to me about this design is the black clouds swirling around it like Shiva-Ganishka.

In English the chapter after Ganishka first emerges as Shiva is called "The Heavens Shook," but in Japanese it's called "Roaring Heavens."

Finally, I figured out where I read the Great Roar of the Astral World was called the Great Wave of the Astral World in Japanese and why I couldn't find it again. There seems to be an edit war between the two names on the Berserk Wiki and when I wrote Part 2 the Wiki was going with "Great Roar," but at time of writing the Wiki is using "Great Wave." The notes at the end of the page suggest "Great Roar" is a translation error stemming from misunderstood wordplay. See, the two kanji that make up "kaishou"/"tidal wave" literally read "ocean roar" and Miura was combining "yuukai"/"dream world" and "kaishou"/"tidal wave" into "yuukaishou." And because he dropped the "ocean" kanji from "kaishou" to do that, it was mistranslated into "yuukai usobu"/"dream world roar" (kanji can be read multiple ways, usually depending on if it's by itself or grouped with other kanji). For an English equivalent, it'd be sort of like if it was called the Great Astridal Wave with "Astridal" being a mashup of "astral" and "tidal," but the translator misread it as the Great Astride-all Wave.

So let's talk about the elephant in the room, or rather the elephant right outside Asgore's flower shop. After the scene on the beach, Susie steps into Asgore's flower shop to buy some flowers for Noelle. When they're alone, Kris throws the SOUL in a trash can and makes ready to create a fountain outside Asgore's Shop - and with the sun going down, who knows what would have happened there - only for Susie to come racing back out of the shop, causing Kris to pause. They then run off behind the shop, and the fountain is created inside Asgore's shop suggesting Kris made it after Susie kept them from making it outside.

When I saw this I thought it could be a fakeout and Kris was supposed to make a fountain outside, then when Susie interrupted Kris and they went into hiding, the Devil switched over to Asgore to create the fountain instead. After all, Kris could have still made the fountain in the trees behind the shop, unless they were planning to go through the front door and... make the fountain right in front of Asgore?

But then Seth reveals Kris created the fountain in Asgore's shop. So much for that idea! And maybe I completely misread the scene and they were always planning to go in the back door and Susie exiting the shop as soon as she did just startled them for a bit. But then why did they pull out their knife outside instead of waiting until they were in the shop?

But the important thing is Kris created the fountains in both their house and Asgore's shop. Still, there are various oddities hinting at multiple people being involved in the creation of the fountains. When the Roaring Knight creates the fountain so they can abduct Asgore, the world has the same palette as the version Kris created. The spelling puzzles in Chapter 2 are clearly derived from the spelling bee where Noelle froze up and Berdly got his first taste of being praised for his intelligence. And the seven flowers straight-up tell you Chapter 5's Dark World is their dream.

And of course, the big question: how was Gerson able to exist in the church's Dark World? Ralsei blatantly says "Darkners patterned after the memory of a loved on tend to only appear on very specific darkness." Sure, he says "tend to" meaning it's possible for Gerson to exist in another kind of darkness, but it still suggests the only way that would be possible is if Father Alvin (or maybe Mrs. Boom) was involved in the fountain's creation somehow.

Another variation on the Yu Yevon Theory I've come up with is that, instead of possessed characters, all the fountains are being created by either Kris or the Knight but they're drawn from the dreams of other characters. In this sense Kris and the Knight are like Summoners and the characters I've been referring to as "conduits" are like fayth. Just as Aeons are the dreams of fayth conjured into reality by a Summoner, the main Dark Worlds are the dreams of other characters conjured into reality by either Kris or the Knight. Or Dream Zanarkand being created from the mass of fayth in Mt. Gagazet with Yu Yevon as the Summoner. Noelle and Berdly were the fayth of the computer lab, Father Alvin was the fayth of the church, and the seven flowers were the fayth of the flower store. Kris tried to be both Summoner and fayth of their house, like when Susie creates the Dark World in the church, which might explain why the dream fell apart at the end. If not the player then the SOUL is the fayth of the storage closet. And, well, I'm not sure who the fayth of the abandoned classroom was. It could have been Seam, Rouxls Kaard, or the Knight drawing from their own dreams, the same way Kris was both Summoner and fayth of their house.

Look, I could be completely off base, and something about Kris or the Roaring Knight creating a fountain makes it special enough for Gerson to live in a Dark World created by them. It'd be a little weird if there wasn't anything to it, though, considering all the other Final Fantasy X stuff I found as a result of this idea.

And on that note, just like with Berserk I've got some odds and ends I scraped together since Part 4. In the cutscene where Auron reveals to Tidus that Sin is Jecht, he mentions Sin's "shell."

In yet another example of eyes being connected to death and destruction, Sin has a bunch of eyes. Not nearly as many as the Idea of Evil or Shiva-Ganishka, but at least a couple dozen.

And you'd think the inside of Sin would be, like, guts and stuff. But remember, Sin is made out of dreams, so when you get inside it it's all mist and water.

There's a leitmotif that runs through Deltarune's soundtrack, and in-universe it's a hymn. A leitmotif called "The Hymn of the Fayth" is frequently heard in Final Fantasy X's soundtrack. It's not quite as common as that leitmotif you hear throughout Final Fantasy XII's soundtrack (which I think is just called "The Theme of the Final Fantasy XII" but don't quote me on that), but you hear it a lot. The Hymn of the Fayth winds up being a key factor in taking down Sin for good.

When you say goodbye to the flowers, if you speak to Flowery a second time he'll admit that, truth be told, their dream couldn't last forever because flowers can only survive so long in the dark.

Obviously this stems from the original names being Japanese, but some YouTube videos call the music for the Zanarkand ruins "Someday the Dream will End" while others call it "A Dream That Will End Some Time." When I ripped the soundtrack from the discs, Windows Media Player automatically named it the latter.

There's an enemy in Chapter 4 called Guei. It's based on a Gui, a Chinese ghost that haunts the world of the living because it's too angry or sad to properly rest, or wasn't given a proper burial.

One of the major Sinspawn you encounter in Final Fantasy X is Sinspawn Gui, which is notable for being the boss everyone says they started having trouble at if they didn't figure out the Sphere Grid. Plus the monsters of Final Fantasy X, or fiends as they're called in-game, are the souls of the dead who have been consumed by hatred for the living, meaning fiends are themselves based on Gui (that dance Yuna is doing in the video of the Hymn of the Fayth is called a Sending, which guides the dead to rest in the Farplane so they can't turn into fiends). And maybe it's just the similarities between Titanspawn and Sinspawn clouding my judgement, but something about "SPAWN" reminds me of "Danger," the boss theme that plays during Sinspawn Gui (among some other bosses).

During the Knight's final attack, its shoulders turn all spikey...

... the same way a bunch of spikes erupt from Jecht's shoulders during the phase transition.

And to completely delve into apophenia, the pommel of the Knight's sword may be the knob of Dess' baseball bat, but it looks like the pommel on Jecht's sword. And I swear the Knight holds its arms the same way Jecht does in the second phase - right arm at a downward angle, left arm bent - just with its sword in its bent arm instead of its straight one.

One of the four prophecies I finally had to look up how to find (along with the flower man, and the ring of Heaven's call and the tail of Hell which are in the same room as each other) talks about the Angel meeting its desire and being banished. A quirk of this prophecy is the characters can see the full panel, but some arches in the foreground block it from you.

But people have speculated the prophecy isn't actually obscured, and the characters are looking at your reflection in the screen. So this prophecy is further proof that YOU are the Angel whose desires are going to end the world, leading to the characters teaming up to banish you at the end of the game.

Besides the fact the "seeing your own reflection" thing doesn't work if your screen isn't reflective enough, this prophecy is referencing the Devil card in tarot. The Devil is about being imprisoned by your own desires, and Satan, the Devil, was a fallen angel. So if this prophecy, which alludes to the Devil card, is also about the player, that is going to raise some questions. Namely, excuse me, Toby, are you calling me Satan???

Last time I speculated that, following King, Queen, and Tenna being based on the King of Swords, the Queen of Cups, and the King of Coins (yeah, yeah, expecting consistency from Toby Fox, I know) and Gerson alluding to a "vast garden charred in an inferno of jealous" during the Hammer of Justice battle, the boss of Chapter 5 could be the Queen of Wands. Well, Chapter 5 is here and yeah, I don't think Flowery is meant to be the Queen of Wands. Rather, he and the other six flowers together are the Sun. The Sun symbolizes inner healing, warmth, and joy and the flowers want to give Asgore a world where he can get away from the pain of his life. The card typically incorporates sunflowers but Kawaii Tarot uses a variety of them. The sun also comes up a lot in Chapter 5, like the song for the cliffs being called "Sunset of Seven Suns," Susie questioning why there's a sun in the Dark World, and the sun being mentioned during the final battle with Flowery.

Cat Tarot says the Sun reversed is a sign to find strength in a group, and another aspect of the Sun is childlike innocence and that's totally Aqua. I guess it's possible Flowery alone is the Sun and the other six flowers are each one of the forty numbered minor arcana, but I feel like Fox would assign the important characters to the major arcana, the court cards of the minor arcana, and maybe also the aces.

If you choose to join Ralsei in the onsen after the Phoenix Wright tribute with Yellow and Blue, Flowery will drop in hanging upside-down from a vine.

This is a callback to the Undertale tarot deck, where Flowey was the Hanged Man. But being in a bad position giving you a chance to rethink your world view doesn't really fit Flowery, and Spamton already claimed the Hanged Man for Deltarune.

And following the Shadow Crystal bosses being based on major arcana, I was going through the remaining cards trying to figure out which one Pink was and I was coming up blank. It wasn't until I was out getting a sandwich that it hit me: Pink is the Queen of Wands. Specifically, her body is the Queen upright (caring, charismatic, enthusiastic), and her soul is the Queen reversed (jealous, demanding, wanting things her way).

Rider-Waite-Smith tarot has the Queen of Wands holding a flower, and Pink tries to disguise herself as a flower. The Wands suit is aligned with fire, and Pink uses bombs. And while she doesn't incorporate wands into her attacks, she does use cat heads and her wand's headpiece is a cat.

And the cherry on top? The Queen of Wands in the Rider-Waite-Smith, Kawaii, and dragon decks all have a cat at their feet. As for Cat Tarot, well, she is the cat. The Kawaii and dragon decks also describe the Queen of Wands being magnetic, not only reflecting Pink's use of the Muffet mechanics where you stick to certain spots, but possibly lending credence to her pulling influence from Magneto.

Going back to that Pink scene where she warns of cats biting hands, Cat Tarot's Justice card depicts a cat biting a hand (because according to the booklet, "just because the hand feeds you doesn't mean it doesn't deserve an occasional nip"). But unless Fox just happened to have this same cat-themed tarot deck or is reading this project and bought himself a set (I mentioned before that Cat Tarot's Devil card is a dog on a leash and Catti mentions Susie's "leash" when she likens her to the Devil, but the Devil card usually uses chains), this has to be a coincidence.

Let's start with a few corrections. First, when I was writing Part 4, people were still trying to figure out what determined if Tenna survived the Roaring Knight's attack. After testing from the fanbase, it seems all you have to do to save Tenna is fully recruit the Pippins and Mr. Nobodies. It doesn't even seem like it matters if you beat him mercifully or violently.

Second, I did not know the Devilsknife also boosts Susie's Magic, more than the tail even, so the scythe is the superior choice against both the Knight and the Hammer of Justice even if you're using OKheal on the latter. But the Dealmaker versus the PuppetScarf against the Knight is hazier. Yes, Ralsei does more damage with the PuppetScarf, but the Dealmaker powers up Rude Buster which is your main source of damage in that fight. And because the Puppetscarf is completely useless against both the Hammer of Justice and Pink - Ralsei isn't involved in the Hammer of Justice fight, and attacking Pink doesn't do anything - while the Dealmaker powers up OKHeal and reduces Cat-elemental damage, the latter is ultimately the smarter choice. And if Seam is right about Pink being the last secret boss, Ralsei isn't going to have his own one-on-one fight that's easier with the PuppetScarf (besides, something may come of the FloweryScarf).

Well shit, why bother with the tail then? Because muh pacifism? It seems like fighting Jevil is the friendlier option; he enjoys the fight and joins the party as the scythe, as opposed to being trapped in a dream and only giving you his tail. Beating him up doesn't even lock you out of the Pacifist ending for Chapter 1, and the tail doesn't change the textures on Scythemare.

Third, it's Susie who speculates the Knight created the fountain in the church, not Ralsei. Fourth, when Batman is fighting Killer Croc in Arkham Asylum the narration boxes reflect what Batman is currently enduring but he's not the one actually narrating: Arkham is.

Finally, and this isn't so much a mistake as something I just need to make a note of, I did not know until I read The Butcher's Masquerade: Dungeon Crawler Carl V that the break rooms at theatres and other entertainment venues are actually called green rooms.

There was a fourth thing that was tripping me up during the Roaring Knight fight: I did not know Rude Buster had a Mario RPG-esque timed button press to increase damage. Yeah, a Pippins mentions it, but because the Pippins are a bunch of cheaters and liars I thought he was pulling my leg "Hold Up and B to increase your chance of catching a Pokemon" style. I don't think this would have affected much, because most of my attempts were ending at one of the sword tunnels anyway.

Going back to how few of Morrison's comics have been translated into Japanese, I don't know how much of Morrison's work could be translated into Japanese and I'm not just referring to how The Invisibles is borderline unreadable even in English. Morrison grew up during the Cold War so a lot of their earlier works incorporate nukes, which Japan is very sensitive about. While going back through Morrison's Amazon.jp page, I noticed Arkham Asylum, as well as being the only book still in print (some are available on Kindle), is the only book released before 2000 to get translated.

Something very interesting I learned since last time is Green and Blue Lanterns strengthen each other because will and hope strengthen each other. In fact, the Blue Lanterns are the most powerful of all the Lantern Corps, but only in the presence of a Green Lantern because hope requires will to reach its full potential.

Another interesting tidbit about the Lantern Corps is that in addition to a color, each emotion is represented by a godlike creature. I don't want to list them all off, but Violet/Love is embodied by a dragon.

The fight with Orange and Green is heavily centered around food. Green throws out food bullets for Orange to gobble up, and acting on either gives Orange even more food.

Is it just me or does Orange seem a little... greedy?

Oh fuck me, I only just realized while writing this that the flowers' Bullet Patterns are based on the Lantern Corps' hard light constructs.

Which you'd think I would have caught on to sooner, considering the Green Lantern's most iconic construct is a giant fist.

After you defeat Eram, Susie gives Kris a can of flat soda.

While it's a bottle of soda Joe finds in the fridge, King Death mentions a can of soda as he orders Sir Ulrik to bring Joe to the Hypogean Labyrinth.

The new cutscene with Pink also mentions cats being good at finding protein. One of the requirements to trigger this dialogue is to either have all five Eggs or just Chapter 5's Egg (I'm getting mixed sources and I haven't tried it myself), and theorists were quick to point out eggs are a good source of protein. You know who else could have told you that?

In the first of two instances of "How did I not notice this before?", along with the zombie rats, the Tomb of the Iron Knight has an army of very much living rats who have sworn allegiance to King Death, led by a large, brutish asshole of a king and a small, skittish prince.

That is, until Joe's speech and Chakk's courage inspire the prince to rally the army against the king.

And the cherry on top is King's prison being a hamster cage.

Second, the backdrop behind the Archons of Nurnheim - the green-stringed puppets banging about the dark - is a city.

The description of Queen's wrecked Punch-Out!! cabinet is a little familiar.

There's a table in the Flower Cafe where, provided you've been nice to certain characters, you can watch jokey scenes involving the Lancer Fun Squad and the flowers. Here you'll find references to Ratatouille, Toy Story, and Ralsei smoking a blunt which I guess Fox did decide to go ahead and make canon. The break with Seth and Blue ends with some other flowers jumping in and talking about throwing rocks.

Is... is this a reference to Killer Croc throwing that rock at Batman? Did Fox actually base the Shadow Crystal bosses on the five characters from "Almost Got 'Im" even if loosely??

There's an item for sale in chapter 5 called "Raw Moon," the description of which makes a joke about the uncertainty of how to pronounce it.

It took me way too long to realize this is a reference to ramune, Japanese carbonated lemonade, because my mind initially went to something else. If you're unfamiliar with Japanese you'd pronounce ramune "rah-moon" but it's pronounced roughly "rah-moo-neh," plus the Japanese R is trilled. It's the same as Americans pronouncing Akira "uh-kyee-ruh" instead of "ah-kee-rah," again, with a trilled R on "rah."

But what I first thought of was Ra Moon from the Mega Man series followed by, boy, how many kids are going to understand that reference? I guess there's going to be some crossover between fans of the Archie Sonic and Mega Man comics, so probably still more than are going to understand a freaking Illusion of Gaia reference. I'll give the Persona 2: Eternal Punishment reference a pass because of how popular Persona 5 is with the kids these days but as far as I know Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, and Terranigma have never seen a rerelease on modern systems so the only way most people are going to play them these days is through emulation.

My second thought was, what does an alien supercomputer have to do with a drink? I mean, I realize now "Ra Moon" just happens to sound like how you'd pronounce "ramune" like an American. Third, how is it unclear how to pronounce "Ra Moon"? I don't think it's "Ray Moon" because the Japanese katakana reads "ra" instead of "rei." Then again, I've heard people pronounce the "Ra" in "Ra's Al Ghul" as both "Rah" and "Ray" and "Ray Moon" sounds way too much like "Rayman" I'm going cross-eyed again.

I also thought the "Phanta" drink was a Phantasy Star reference, but the Deltarune Wiki says it's a reference to some Touhou shooter. Could be both.

And because it's been so long since I played Illusion of Gaia, I didn't realize until I pulled up a video about the Red Jewels while looking for an image of Gem the Jeweler's inventory that Seth themself is another Illusion of Gaia reference.

Seth's page on the Deltarune Wiki does mention this, but there's nothing on the BromideR or Flower Cafe pages about "My Secret" being based on Gem the Jeweler's prize for 50 red jewels.

At one point Sir Ulrik's faceguard opens up like a toothy mouth.

One of the comments Bibliox can make during battle is "It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times."

I thought it was obvious this was a Simpsons reference but as of writing this the Bibliox's page on the Deltarune wiki doesn't mention it. By what slipped my mind is that the Simpsons scene this is a reference to is itself a reference to the Infinite Monkey Theorem. The same Infinite Monkey Theorem that keeps popping up in Morrison's comics. Yeah, throughout Chapter 5 Fox hammers home that he really likes The Simpsons and this could just be a coincidence, but still.

More super obvious stuff the Deltarune wiki doesn't mention: the Queen Signal is based on the Bat Signal; the wire frame Queen is a reference to Sigma's virus form in Mega Man X2 and 3; Spamton NEO blowing air at you is based on Whispy Woods; "Knock You Down !!" is a reference dual reference to Punch-Out!! and "I, Garland, will knock you all down!!"; the Tenna fight is one big Wario Ware reference; Kodakoda Island, as well as a reference to Kodak (which the wiki does mention), is a reference to Coralcola from Startropics.

This reference requires some explaining so I guess I can understand why it's not on the Wiki, but the Mr. Nobodies having bunny ears under their hats could be another Simpsons reference. Before Matt Groening did The Simpsons he did a comic series called Life In Hell which had these rabbit characters, I've never read the comic so I don't know the specifics. When The Simpsons was first starting out, he imagined Marge was one of these rabbits in disguise and her tall hair was to hide her ears. This is why Marge has bunny ears when she gets electrocuted in the Simpsons arcade game.

There's a running joke in DC comics about Darkseid sitting in chairs. It's also canon that Santa Claus busts into Apokolips every year to give Darkseid a lump of coal.

Yeah, these don't really have any relevance to Deltarune, I just think they're funny and want to share them with you.

At the end of The Invisibles, Dane goes through the Moonchild's mirror and enters... I don't fucking know, some heightened state of reality, where he can see the trails everyone leaves as they move around. These trails are very similar to the ones the Roaring Knight creates.

In addition to Killer Croc, I'm convinced Gerson pulls from Tom O'Bedlam from The Invisibles. Both are cooky old men who talk in vague riddles while trying to prepare a young whippersnapper to save the world, and Tom talks about shockwaves and ripples as he's lecturing to Dane about dreams being real.

Shockwaves are seen throughout Chapter 4 and especially the statue fight, the music to which is called "Ripple."

And both mysteriously disappear at the end of their storyline after their student jumps off a high place. With Gerson, it's after Kris and Susie jump into the Titan. As for Tom, he takes Dane to the tallest skyscraper they can find and jumps off with him. Dane lands in a distant forest, while Tom is nowhere to be found.

This scene might looks familiar to you beyond Deltarune and Animal Man. There's a lot of talk about The Invisibles inspiring The Matrix, but when asked about it the Wachowskis claim that while they were big fans of Morrison and The Invisibles, the comic was not an influence on The Matrix. Because it had been at least fifteen, maybe even twenty years since I'd seen The Matrix I didn't want to give my own thoughts until I'd had a chance to rewatch it and... yeah, the Wachowskis are full of shit. Maybe The Invisibles wasn't the primary inspiration for The Matrix, but they totally pulled bits and pieces from it. Not just Dane and Neo both jumping off a building as part of their initiation into the organization that knows the truth about their reality, but green is used to signify when reality is off, people are frequently told to "wake up," Morpheus' imprisonment and interrogation is ripped off of King Mob's down to the mind-fucking drug used to try to break them, and Neo getting bugged is straight out of Guy's plot about the "bug" in her memory.

During the festival, Catti can be found in the church turned haunted house, running a fortune telling stand. She mentions leaving Kris to perform a summoning alone.

Prior to the confrontation with the Telephone Avatar, Doom Patrol occasionally cuts to scenes building up to it. One of these scenes takes us to Flex's old girlfriend, Dolores, visiting a fortune teller who uses phones to talk to the dead. She mentions a summoning, that being when Bell and Watson's first telephone conversation accidentally brought the Telephone Avatar into existence.

It could also be another Final Fantasy X reference. Again, Summoners bring the dreams of fayth into reality, and the Final Summoning is when a Summoner uses their Final Aeon to defeat Sin.

In the 2025 Batman/Deadpool crossover comic written by Grant Morrison, Batman and Deadpool ride through a Tunnel of Love, complete with a swan-shaped boat.

Because this comic is loaded with Easter eggs of Morrison's whole career this is probably a callback to Phase 3 of Zenith, where the one of the fights with the Lloigor took place in an amusement park. But if this is based on the acid pool ride from Deltarune Chapter 2, we've got ourselves an Inspiration Ouroboros here.

I'm kind of weirded out by Pink calling Spamton a gremlin. Like, I'm far from the first person to call him that but... still...