Archive of Our Own

Prologue

A lot of people seem to have a lot of ideas about Ralsei. Most of these ideas seem to revolve around Ralsei being “suspicious” at various points throughout Deltarune’s first two chapters. At the time of writing, the other chapters have not yet been released, so it might be premature to start organizing these suspicions into theories. However, we actually have a lot of information to work with here, and it’s worth taking stock of how it all fits together.

Each section of this essay will be dedicated to a single hypothesis surrounding Ralsei, starting with a brief overview, and then running through each relevant piece of evidence. For your convenience, I have made up a series of names for these theories, but I wasn’t able to find a whole lot of coherent and specific Ralsei theorycrafting content online, so you may find that other fans call these theories by different names. Before we dive into theories, we should all be clear on exactly what “evidence” we’re even talking about. So this prologue will be focused on listing out that evidence, without any interpretation or analysis.

• The first time we meet Ralsei, he claims to have spent his whole life alone, but he seems to know an awful lot of information that, logically, someone must have told him. He knows about the Legend, the gameplay mechanics, Kris and Susie’s names, etc. No explanation for any of this knowledge is ever offered.
• He looks like Asriel, but nobody seems to notice. His name is a blatantly obvious anagram.
• During the prison sequence, he encourages Kris to imagine what Susie is doing, and when Susie returns, it appears that Ralsei was having some sort of conversation with Kris. This repeats in Chapter 2. In both cases, the conversation ends with Ralsei saying “So that’s why...” but we never find out what he was going to say, or the surrounding context of this phrase.
• He knows about the configuration of the school, the unused classroom, etc., but it is unclear how he obtained this information.
• Kris’s room in Ralsei’s castle looks really similar to their room in the Light World, complete with trophies (which were originally on Asriel’s side of the room).
• He is able to move from the school supply closet to the library. No explanation is provided for how he did this, or whether he can generally move through the Light World.
• Following the Spamton NEO fight (on the Normal Route), Ralsei suggests that Spamton had no significance, and advises Kris to stop thinking about him.
• He conveniently reveals the Roaring at the last possible moment of Chapter 2, right before the Lightners were about to start making dark fountains everywhere. Logically, this seems like important information that could have been revealed sooner (and on the Weird Route, his doing so actually preempts the entire fight with Queen).
• On the Weird Route of Chapter 2, Ralsei encourages Kris to think about Susie, and seems mildly frustrated when Kris refuses. Then, before he can do so a second time, Susie abruptly returns, and the game doesn’t cut away at all. Ralsei is visibly shaken by this turn of events. Susie also has a line which suggests she doesn’t want Ralsei to know what happened with Noelle, which makes very little sense in the overall context of the Weird Route (Noelle and Ralsei barely interact on the Normal Route, and don’t interact at all on the Weird Route).

While we’re at it, here are some things which I rejected as evidence (and the reasons why):

• He does not turn into a statue when traveling to other dark worlds, unlike other Darkners. This is probably because he originates from the Grand Fountain in Castle Town, which he says is different to other dark fountains in that it can support any Darkner (and we see other Darkners living there just fine). Presumably, this effect works both ways, making Ralsei compatible with any dark fountain.
• He walks around with his hands behind his back, which some people apparently think “looks suspicious.” Um, sure, but I don’t think there’s actually a logical connection between how the character walks, and what the character’s inner motivations are.

The Null Hypothesis: Move along, nothing to see here

The Null Hypothesis posits that there is, for the most part, nothing to explain. Ralsei probably does know a few things which the rest of the party does not, but this is not for any nefarious reason. If directly asked, he would disclose all of this information immediately, because he isn’t deliberately hiding anything. All of the “suspicious” events are really just coincidences or red herrings. In all other respects, Ralsei is exactly who and what he claims to be: The party’s helpful, fluffy, slightly naive healer.

Yeah, I know: It’s boring. The thing about boring explanations, though, is that they have a tendency to be right. You can come up with all sorts of convoluted explanations for things, but before you can begin to consider those explanations, you have to be sure that there really is something which demands such an elaborate explanation in the first place. Occam’s Razor dictates that, if the simple explanation is good enough, we should prefer it over more complicated explanations which require unnecessary assumptions. So, rather than thinking of this as a hypothesis in its own right, think of it as the absence of a hypothesis. The Null Hypothesis is the default position. Any explanation which is less plausible than the Null simply cannot be taken seriously in the first instance, and should be dismissed out of hand. Consequently, I’ve dedicated the most attention to the Null, as it is a useful measuring stick for evaluating other hypotheses.

• Ralsei does know a lot of things, but as soon as he finishes explaining the Legend, Susie walks off in boredom, and Kris can actually refuse to listen to it outright. Under the circumstances, it’s hard to blame him for deciding not to infodump the rest of his backstory all at once, especially since going after Susie was obviously a more pressing concern at the time. For all we know, he could have provided some of this information to Susie during Chapter 2, when he was offscreen.
• Sure, he looks like Asriel from Undertale, but the Asriel of Deltarune is presumably quite a bit older. Also, I doubt that Deltarune!Asriel has quite as much pink in his horns etc. as Ralsei does. Regardless, there probably is an explanation for the resemblance (and the anagram), which we will probably learn in a later chapter, but the resemblance itself is not necessarily indicative of anything untoward.
• You can write all sorts of sentences that begin with “So that’s why...” and make sense in context. For example, “So that’s why you shouldn’t worry about Susie.” It would be strange for the two of them to just stand there without talking at all.
• Other Darkners (Seam, Jevil, the King) are clearly aware of Lightners, and the Queen seems to know a great deal about Lightners via their search histories. There is no specific, unambiguous evidence which establishes that Darkners in general lack knowledge of the Light World as a whole, so Ralsei’s knowledge of the school may not be special. It may be the case that all Darkners who live in or around the school are generally aware of the school’s layout in the Light World. Lancer doesn’t seem confused when Ralsei describes the Dark World turning back into an unused classroom, for example.
• Ralsei probably does know more about Kris than he lets on, which is how he was able to reconstruct Kris’s room. Presumably, he learned this information in the same way (as yet unexplained) that he learned Kris’s name, and presumably we’ll learn more about that in the next few chapters.
• Ralsei obviously does have some unexplained means of traveling between the school supply closet and the library, but neither Kris nor Susie ask him about it. If he volunteered an explanation, it would feel awkward and might cause Susie to get bored again. In general, Ralsei seems to care more about team cohesion than about infodumping everything that the party might possibly want to know. If either of them had asked, he probably would have explained.
• Ralsei presumably doesn’t know that Kris is controlled by the player. From his perspective, Spamton NEO really is just a glitchy corrupted program that said a bunch of weird stuff and suddenly died. Kris is obviously in distress, but Ralsei doesn’t understand why, because he is unaware of the source and context of Kris’s distress. So in an effort to make his friend feel better, he encourages them to think about something else. This doesn’t work, but it was a nice try.
• Ralsei thinks he already did explain the Roaring at the beginning of Chapter 1. The Legend describes all sorts of bad things happening if the balance of light and dark “were to shatter.” But the Lightners were obviously not paying attention the first time around, so he gives them a more direct and explicit warning, which the Queen then overhears. Things play out differently on the Weird Route because Noelle is absent.
• When Susie is talking to Noelle, on the Weird Route, Noelle tells Susie that she killed Berdly, but nothing more (and in particular, she does not mention Kris’s involvement). Susie doesn’t want to traumatize Ralsei, so she decides to keep this from him. This is also why she encourages Noelle to believe that it’s all just a dream, and why she leaves so abruptly. Ralsei is perturbed because he had assumed that Susie would try to bring Noelle outside so that the party could make their escape (as on the Normal Route), but Susie ditches this plan after it becomes apparent that Noelle is too freaked out to do anything, much less escape.

Overall, this hypothesis holds up surprisingly well. Its main weak point is Ralsei’s exceedingly odd behavior on the Weird Route. While we can explain Susie’s behavior easily enough, Ralsei’s distress seems to have more to do with the lack of a cutaway sequence than with Noelle. This suggests that Ralsei is in fact aware of cutaway sequences, and in turn of the player. From there, some of our other theories begin to unwind, particularly as they relate to Spamton NEO. However, this is an awful lot to extrapolate from what is, ultimately, one relatively short cutscene. While Ralsei’s behavior is suspicious, I’m not willing to say that it’s completely inexplicable.

The Soulless Hypothesis: A human and a prince from the Dark

Under the Soulless Hypothesis, Ralsei and soulless!Kris are working together to repeatedly open and close dark fountains all over Hometown, presumably with the goal of recruiting and relocating Darkners to Castle Town. His ultimate intentions after that point are less clear. He might be trying to give himself more subjects, and thus higher status as a prince, or he might be trying to rescue forgotten and neglected Darkners from an uncaring Light World. It’s also possible that he actually plans to do something specific once enough Darkners have been recruited, but it becomes difficult to speculate beyond that point.

• Ralsei deliberately tells the player and Susie exactly enough information to motivate them to seal the fountain in the unused classroom, and no more. It’s even possible that he just made the Legend up.
• His Asriel-like appearance might relate to his origins and/or to his relationship with Kris, or it might be a facade to put the player or Susie at ease.
• During the prison sequence, he instructs Kris to open a new fountain every time the previous fountain has been sealed. When Kris eats the pie, they also slip out of the house and open the library fountain at the same time, as instructed by Ralsei. The pie is a decoy to distract the player from this event. During the Susie/Noelle sequence, Ralsei may further elaborate on or refine this plan, or he may simply encourage Kris to continue with it.
• Ralsei’s knowledge of the school etc. was either obtained during the prison sequence, or he just inherently knew it like he knew Kris’s name.
• Kris could have told Ralsei what their room looks like during the prison sequence, or he could have been created with that knowledge.
• Ralsei transforms into some object which Kris either carries or wears normally in the Light World (but which does not appear on the ITEM screen or their sprite). The ITEM screen does not list every last scrap of clothing etc. that Kris is wearing or carrying, and their sprite has limited resolution and can’t show everything. Alternatively, Ralsei is able to move through the Light World normally, but generally avoids doing so because it would arouse suspicion if he were seen.
• After Spamton NEO, Ralsei “plays dumb” because he knows that the player is watching. Logically, he shouldn’t know about the player, so he is unable to comfort Kris in an effective way without arousing even more suspicion.
• In this version of events, the Roaring may or may not even exist. If it does exist, it probably can’t be triggered by just opening and closing one fountain at a time. If it doesn’t, then it was invented by Ralsei to prevent the Lightners from interfering with his plans.
• On the Weird Route, Ralsei gets disconcerted because he wanted to talk to Kris about their plans for the next fountain, and he has now been prevented from doing that.

The most significant shortcoming of this explanation is that it does not clearly identify what Ralsei is or where he came from. Who created him, when, and how? Without those answers, this is all just a bunch of handwavy guesswork. Large portions of this hypothesis rest on the assumption that if party member A is shady, and party member B is also shady, then A must be working with B. But that’s not a valid inference. While the evidence is certainly compatible with this hypothesis, I’m having a harder time saying that this is the best explanation we can come up with.

The Gaster Hypothesis: Do you wanna be a [BIG SHOT]?

According to the Gaster Hypothesis, Ralsei was created by, and/or works for, Gaster. We know that Gaster (or someone who speaks in “garbage noises,” anyway) tried to recruit Spamton and (probably) Jevil (Seam describes Jevil meeting a “strange someone” right before he lost his mind), but both were seemingly rejected. What if Ralsei was the person who ultimately met Gaster’s standards?

Gaster’s motives are unclear. If I’m interpreting the opening correctly, Gaster gives the player near total control of Kris, so presumably he wants possessed!Kris to do something which soulless!Kris would not do on their own. The most obvious candidate for this “something” is sealing fountains, which is exactly what Ralsei encourages us to do.

• Ralsei may have been created by Gaster from scratch, after he rejected every candidate Darkner. Gaster would have given Ralsei exactly the knowledge that he needed, and Ralsei would of course not volunteer that fact if asked. He probably would have some sort of cover story, but it hasn’t come up yet. Alternatively, Ralsei is lying about his past.
• He looks like Undertale!Asriel because that’s the form which the player (not Kris) is most likely to view favorably. Gaster tailored Ralsei’s appearance to our preferences.
• During the prison sequence, and the Susie/Noelle sequence, Ralsei and soulless!Kris negotiate or argue over the latter’s body. Soulless!Kris wants their body back, but Gaster and Ralsei have other plans for it.
• Ralsei knows the school’s configuration because Gaster told him about it.
• Kris’s room looks familiar because Gaster can see everything which the player can see. Possibly, it is intended as an olive branch to soulless!Kris (which, judging by the end of Chapter 2, was rejected).
• Ralsei can travel freely between Dark Worlds, because darkness is Gaster’s whole thing.
• Ralsei doesn’t want Kris and Susie thinking too carefully about Spamton NEO, because one or both of them might figure out that Ralsei works for Gaster.
• The Roaring may be real. It’s possible that Gaster and Ralsei are trying to trigger it, but in a very specific way, so that the full prophecy (from Chapter 1) can play out. Or it’s possible that they’re trying to prevent it, or it could even be a complete fabrication.
• Ralsei is flustered by the Weird Route because it seems like the player has broken free of Gaster’s control, and he wasn’t prepared to handle that eventuality.

The main problem with this hypothesis is that it makes a lot of assumptions about Gaster’s capabilities and goals which are not actually supported by canonical evidence. It is possible that Gaster is powerless to do most of the things I describe above, or that he his goals are inscrutable and totally different to those of Ralsei. This problem extends to almost any fan theory involving Gaster. Unfortunately, we know so little about Gaster that he can be reshaped to fit into almost any set of criteria, and so you can always come up with a “Gaster did it” theory for any given aspect of the story. On the other hand, Gaster is clearly doing something in the world of Deltarune, judging by Jevil and Spamton. We just don’t know exactly what that thing is yet.

The Nice Hypothesis: I hope we can be good friends!

In the Nice Hypothesis, Ralsei didn’t really mean to start keeping secrets from his friends. It just, sort of, happened that way. This starts out very similar to the Null Hypothesis, above, but Ralsei eventually figures out at least some of what’s going on with Kris, likely during the prison sequence when the player stops controlling them. At this point, Ralsei is torn. The player is cooperating with him, and soulless!Kris (probably) expresses some hostility towards him for that cooperation. At the same time, the player is also controlling his friend and causing them distress.

Ralsei considers it, and reluctantly decides that focusing on the prophecy is more important in the short run. After all, the fate of the entire world is at stake. But he tells soulless!Kris that he will do everything he can to help them once the Roaring has been prevented or otherwise dealt with. Soulless!Kris is unconvinced by this halfway position, as they want their body back immediately. This results in a long-running, low-key conflict between Ralsei and soulless!Kris, culminating in the latter creating a new fountain inside their own home (although they may also have created the other fountains first). From there, things are likely to escalate.

I won’t bother to list out the evidence, because most of it would just be a repetition of the Null Hypothesis. However, for Spamton NEO and the Weird Route, this opens up some intriguing new interpretations of Ralsei’s behavior. He may be distressed by the possibility of the player suddenly turning on him, or learning of his interactions with soulless!Kris.

The main problem with this hypothesis is that it’s all a bit speculative. We don’t know exactly how Ralsei would react to learning that Kris is controlled by the player, and the above description is largely conjecture. However, if we assume that his personality is more or less as it appears, then I think that something like what I have sketched out above is the most plausible character arc for him.

Honorable Mention: The Asriel Hypothesis

The Asriel Hypothesis posits that Ralsei is Asriel. There are... numerous logical problems with this, which could be explained away in future chapters, but for now, I don’t think it’s compatible with the available evidence. The main problem is that Asriel should be away at university, and someone should have noticed if he wasn’t there. Many of the interactions between Kris and Ralsei in Chapter 2 feel uncomfortable or downright weird if Ralsei is Asriel. Add to that the fact that Asriel has no obvious motive for doing any of this, and this hypothesis feels untenable to me, unless we get some kind of evidence in its favor in the next few chapters. In short, this hypothesis is less plausible than the Null and cannot be seriously evaluated.

Dishonorable Mention: The Evil Hypothesis

The Evil Hypothesis just says that Ralsei is “secretly evil.” This is far too vague for me to evaluate at all. If you’re going to accuse Ralsei of being evil, you need to be more specific than that. What nefarious goal is he working towards, and how is he doing so?

Conclusion

We could probably come up with numerous other theories about Ralsei, but let’s stop here and take stock. We now have hypotheses aligning Ralsei with every major power that we’re currently aware of, including two separate hypotheses which align him with the rest of the Fun Gang (or whatever name you picked in Chapter 1). All of these hypotheses are at least somewhat plausible, even the Null Hypothesis, but they also have various gaps and limitations. If you wanted, you could probably try aligning Ralsei with Susie, Noelle, or just about anyone else you like. The point of this essay is not that any one of these hypotheses is right. Rather, the point is that we do not have enough information to figure out what Ralsei’s deal is, and we probably won’t know for sure until we get to the next major release.

Nevertheless, we need to stop ignoring the Null Hypothesis, and take it seriously as a possibility. I’m not saying it’s definitely right, but almost everything that Ralsei says or does could potentially have some sort of innocent explanation. The character is deliberately ambiguous, and we are clearly meant to read all sorts of things into Ralsei’s behavior. However, just because Ralsei seems suspicious, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he is actually hiding anything. Toby Fox may be deliberately trying to lead us down a false trail of suspecting Ralsei, when in fact there’s no there there, just so that he can pull off an entirely different plot twist altogether.