Just reaalized I never typed out my wild Deltarune conjecture (spoilers)

So the running theory in the fandom is that DR is an AU where the monsters won the war, right? We also know that Tori and Asgore are still split up even though Asgore presumably hasn’t been murdering children, so something else must have happened.

My pet theory is that Kris was a human child who got left behind or otherwise somehow ended up being taken in by the Dreemurrs. But somewhere along the way, *another* human child decided to take revenge on the monsters (for the war, or for specific casualties who were people they cared about) by killing Kris. (“If you think humans are such scum why don’t we finish the job,” etc etc.)

For the sake of consistency I’m going to call this character Racha, because the other anagrams are taken.

So let’s say Racha kills Kris, and Asgore, who we know does NOT deal well with grief, won’t accept the fact and immediately goes looking for a solution. Well, perhaps a certain Royal Scientist we haven’t exactly seen in DR but who is referenced a LOT and is known to work with souls has the fix.

Human souls hang around after death right? And what we have here is one child-sized human body currently being inhabited by a murderer, and the lingering soul of an innocent kid. Well…

But it doesn’t work very well. Kris isn’t themself, even with the transplanted body. Humans can’t absorb human souls, remember? And the original owner is maybe not as gone as they seem. Also Toriel is pissed because she takes the view that a child whose entire family has been killed in the war by monsters isn’t mentally stable enough to be held accountable for their actions, and that Kris should have been allowed to rest in peace–and nothing about Kris’s botched body transplant is about to change her mind.

Still, something of Kris is hanging on and maintaining control–except at night. When Kris loses consciousness they’re vulnerable to what remains of the body’s original owner, and the stain on the wall gets a little bigger every time. So there’s maybe kind of a reason Kris is so tired all the time… and maybe also a reason you don’t ever sleep in DR at any kind of inn. (You can be a Bed Inspector, but you can’t actually sleep mid-game.)

This neatly explains why the SOUL (Kris) seems to be getting ripped out on a regular basis, why the Dreemurrs apparently used to be a perfectly happy family but aren’t anymore, and offers some possibilities about what Gaster might have been working on to get chucked out of the universe in DR. (If DR vs UT Gaster is even a distinction that exists.) It’d explain why Asriel’s side of the room is so much nicer than Kris’s: what’s left of Kris (and Racha) just doesn’t care any more. It’d explain the knife and the murder glare Racha (?) gives you at the end.

Kris seems willing to let you, the player, guide their SOUL, but Racha seems less eager to lend their body for your endeavors…

GET HIM