As a quick disclaimer before you read this blog post, I am warning you that this is a peek into the absolute insanity that is the Deltarune community. While I am deeply invested in this community and the discourse within it, I need to clarify that I am of somewhat alright mental stability.
Alright. I have been itching to write about Deltarune for a while now, but never quite found the right subject to focus a blog post around. This is because I'm frankly a gigantic nerd when it comes to this game and its fan community, as it is one of the most creative, insane, and talented fan communities I've seen for a game. For those unaware, Deltarune is an indie RPG (RPG means Role-Playing Game) created by Toby Fox and his team, which follows Kris, Susie, and Ralsei as they go on adventures within new "dark worlds", which are essentially pocket dimensions. Besides being a generally well-written, funny, and interesting game to play, I've personally been fascinated by its varying levels of subtexts and metacommentaries on a variety of subjects, like philosophy and critiques on the videogame industry- but I'll probably write about that another day.
Only two chapters of Deltarune have been released to the public, with the last installment being launched three years ago, which has led to lots of theorizing within the fan community about what the future for the game might hold- especially the next chapter of the game. Thanks to the talented and passionate community, there are countless fan-made interpretations of the yet-unreleased third installment of the series, with fully developed characters, unofficial soundtracks, and even some short fan games that explore their idea for what the next chapter of Deltarune might look like! Like seriously, it is scary seeing how hungry for Deltarune content the fans are: we are at a point where people are reinterpreting and making their own versions of the fan-made Chapter 3, which is frankly kind of insane and awesome at the same time....
Anyways, to try to get to the point of this blog post, an aspect of fan theories for Chapter 3 that tends to get the most attention is the "secret boss" of the chapter. The "secret boss" is a pattern within the base game that, in each chapter of the game, there will be an extra boss enemy that requires the player to go out of their way to fight, in order to experience harder fights and an insight on the secret lore of the game. The previous two secret bosses, Jevil and Spamton, have been fan favorite characters of the community, and each with their own unique and interesting tragic backstories, so naturally the fans are eager to see the next chapter's secret boss. So how exactly are fans coming up with their own idea for a "secret boss"?
The fanbase's idea of what can "make" a secret boss follow a few base requirements, based on the patterns established by the two previous secret bosses, Spamton and Jevil. Additionally, the community has been attempting to contextualize these patterns with the confirmed theming of the next chapter, which is a TV-themed dark world. While there are several small details that have potential to determine the identity of a secret boss, for the purpose of this blog post I'm going to focus on two: The Freedom/Control Motif, and The Discarded/Forgotten Item Motif.
Starting with the Freedom/Control Motif, it has been established from the very start of the game that one of Deltarune's core themes is Freedom/Control. As soon as you start the game, you are repeatedly told that "your choices don't matter", which seems contradictory to the game's RPG genre (in RPGs usually the player's actions influence what ending they get). Additionally, the main character of the game, Kris, is shown to be a distinct entity from the player, even though we control their actions and movements. It was revealed in the ending of both Chapter 1 and 2 that Kris is not willingly being controlled by the player, and seems to resent being under the control of a higher being (which is us, as the player of the game). Without veering too far into Deltarune's metanarrative of controlling videogame characters and the consequences that can have in-game, I'm essentially saying that the idea of being controlled is crucial to understanding the plot of the game.
Here is where the secret bosses come in: both Jevil and Spamton's characters are centered around the ideas of "freedom", but with different interpretations. It is implied in the backstories of both characters that they, similarly to Kris, are aware of the control of a higher being, unlike the rest of the characters. Jevil, who is found locked away in a jail cell, believes that he is the only "free" one, while the rest of the world are the ones behind bars. Through deluding himself with insanity, he argues that a shift in perspective allowed him to feel free, despite being jailed in reality. Spamton, on the other hand, actively strives to feel "free" despite knowing he isn't, so in his desperation, attempts to "ascend" through transferring his consciousness to another body. But despite this attempt, he just becomes even further aware of his lack of freedom, manifesting puppet strings to his new body representing his remaining under the control of a higher being, frustrating him.
Switching over to the Discarded/Forgotten Item Motif, it is a much simpler and more surface-level observation in the pattern established by the previous bosses than the metanarrative focus on freedom. The way that Deltarune's "dark worlds" manifest is by magic infusing a certain room, for example a classroom or a computer lab, bringing inanimate objects within the room to life, and manifesting the contents of the room into an entire pocket dimension. This means that every character in the dark world, including the secret bosses, are the personification of a specific real-world item/concept.
In Chapter 1, we had Jevil, which represented the Joker card from a deck of cards (the majority of characters in Chapter 1 were based on the four suits of a deck of cards that was left in a classroom). In most cases of playing with a deck of cards, the Joker card is discarded, separating the card from the rest (which might have manifested in the dark world as Jevil being locked away from the rest of the card characters). In Chapter 2, we met Spamton, which was the embodiment of spam emails that would clog up the inboxes of the computers. Spam emails are typically discarded or deleted from one's main inbox and moved into the Trash tab (which may have been the reasoning for why Spamton lives in a garbage can).
With these two motifs in mind, along with the knowledge that the next chapter will take place in a TV world, the fanbase has run rampant with theories. Some theorize that the next secret boss will be a personification of a TV remote that was lost in the cushions of the couch. This theory is compelling due to its adherence to the "forgotten item" motif along with its tie-in to the game's themes about control (being a literal control device). Another popular theory is that the secret boss will be the representation of the radio, as a play on the phrase "TV killed the radio star". Under this line of reasoning, it'd make sense since everyone got rid of their radios as soon as television became popularized, and radio show hosts often spouted propaganda during wartime, offering a new interesting take on the idea of being controlled.
I personally have a favorite theorized secret boss, but I'll have to talk about that one in another blog....
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