The essay argues that
Deltarune is not merely a fantasy RPG with symbolic elements, but a work built around a coherent metaphysical system derived primarily from ancient creation myths, Gnosticism, literary theory, and metafiction. Its central claim is that the game's mysteries become much clearer when interpreted through these broader philosophical and religious traditions rather than through game lore alone.
Its major ideas can be summarized as follows:
1. Darkness is the primordial substance of creation
The author begins by surveying ancient Near Eastern, Greek, Biblical, Egyptian, Indian, and other creation myths. Across many cultures, creation begins with:
- an infinite dark ocean,
- primordial chaos,
- undifferentiated potential,
- water existing before creation itself.
The essay argues that
Deltarune deliberately adopts this same cosmological model.
In this framework:
- Darkness is equivalent to the primordial ocean.
- Water imagery throughout the game is not decorative—it represents pre-creation reality.
- Dark Fountains are breaches into this underlying primordial substance.
- The Roaring is equivalent to mythological flood narratives: creation collapsing back into primordial chaos.
2. The "Depths" are reality beneath reality
The essay proposes that the mysterious "Depths" referenced throughout the game are not literal underground oceans.
Instead they are:
- the metaphysical layer beneath ordinary existence,
- the source from which Dark Worlds emerge,
- the game's equivalent of the Biblical Tehom ("the Deep").
Dark Fountains puncture ordinary reality and allow this creative Darkness to erupt into the world.
Dark Worlds are therefore literally made from the raw material of creation itself.
3. Darkness represents possibility while Light represents fixed reality
One of the essay's central philosophical claims is that:
Darkness =
- imagination
- uncertainty
- creativity
- potential
- chaos
Light =
- certainty
- observation
- order
- fixed existence
The game therefore uses Darkness as something much richer than simply "evil."
Darkness allows imagined things to become temporarily real.
Dark Worlds are therefore intermediate spaces between imagination and reality.
4. Dark Worlds are structured forms of play
Drawing heavily on Johan Huizinga's concept of the
magic circle, the essay argues that Dark Worlds function like:
- playgrounds,
- rituals,
- games,
- fictional worlds.
The earliest Dark Worlds resemble childhood pretend games that animate ordinary objects.
However, the author notes an important anomaly:
Dark Worlds are not completely free.
Instead they all obey one overarching ruleset:
- levels
- stats
- parties
- recruitment
- RPG mechanics
This suggests that every Dark World exists inside one larger game:
DELTARUNE itself.
5. Gaster is effectively the creator-god of Deltarune
The essay argues that Gaster occupies a role analogous to an author or demiurge.
Evidence cited includes:
- the SURVEY_PROGRAM introduction,
- hidden game files,
- menus,
- save systems,
- Gaster's announcements,
- his repeated observation of the player.
Rather than existing entirely inside the story, Gaster exists partly outside it—closer to the player's own perspective.
The player and Gaster therefore occupy similar metaphysical positions:
both stand above the fictional world while interacting with it.
6. Deltarune is fundamentally about predestination
Secret bosses such as:
are interpreted as characters who have discovered the true nature of reality.
Their madness comes from realizing:
- they live inside a game,
- their roles are predetermined,
- genuine freedom may not exist.
Chapter 4 expands this idea by presenting the prophecy as literally dictating reality.
The world's religion venerates this prophecy because it governs existence itself.
7. Gnosticism provides the deepest interpretive framework
The essay spends a large section explaining Gnostic cosmology.
Key concepts include:
- the Monad (ultimate unknowable God),
- Sophia (Wisdom),
- the Fall,
- the Demiurge,
- the false material world,
- hidden knowledge (gnosis),
- liberation from illusion.
The author argues these ideas strongly parallel
Deltarune.
8. Gaster parallels Sophia and the Demiurge
According to the essay:
Like Sophia,
- Gaster pursued forbidden knowledge,
- suffered a catastrophic fall,
- shattered into fragments,
- transcended ordinary existence.
Like the Demiurge,
- he constructs an imperfect world,
- rules over it,
- invites others into it,
- imitates an older creation (Undertale).
Unlike traditional Gnostic myths, however, Gaster combines aspects of both Sophia and the Demiurge into a single figure.
The essay even suggests that his association with glitches resembles the Gnostic concept of "Error."
9. Gaster is also a stand-in for Toby Fox
The author argues that Gaster should not only be understood as an in-universe character.
He also represents:
- the game designer,
- the artist,
- the author.
The relationship between:
Gaster → Player
mirrors
Author → Reader.
Creating art is portrayed as simultaneously:
- beautiful,
- painful,
- controlling,
- creative.
The essay interprets Gaster's desire for "CONNECTION" as mirroring an artist's desire to share a work with an audience.
10. Deltarune is about the relationship between fiction and reality
Drawing on Russian Formalism and Viktor Shklovsky's theory of "defamiliarization," the essay argues that Dark Worlds represent art itself.
Just as fiction transforms ordinary reality into something strange and meaningful:
- Dark Worlds transform everyday objects into living worlds.
Crossing into a Dark World is analogous to entering a novel, stage play, or game.
The player knowingly participates in this illusion.
11. Game code itself has a metaphysical role
One of the essay's more unusual claims is that:
- menus,
- save files,
- hidden rooms,
- unused content,
- internal game code
are not merely development artifacts.
Instead they exist diegetically as part of the game's metaphysics.
The essay proposes that the game's source code corresponds to the primordial Darkness or "Depths" beneath reality itself.
Characters associated with Gaster occupy this liminal layer between fiction and implementation.
Overall thesis
The essay presents
Deltarune as a work about creation itself. Its world is built on ancient cosmological ideas in which a primordial darkness gives rise to reality, while also drawing heavily on Gnostic theology, literary theory, and metafiction. Dark Worlds are interpreted as spaces of imaginative creation; Gaster as both creator-god and author; the player as an external divine participant; and the game's prophecy as a metaphor for authored narrative. Ultimately, the essay argues that
Deltarune explores the tension between determinism and freedom, author and audience, imagination and reality, asking whether fictional beings—or perhaps people more generally—can transcend the structures that define their existence.
