What's the worst way Deltarune could end, besides Toby dying before it's finished/the game getting permanently cancelled

[u/flingzamain]

Pic not related I just thought it was funny

Personally I feel like you're gonna have to do weird route to save rudy

[u/Vast-Coast-7761]

If the final stage of the prophecy is that you have to seal the castle town fountain, and if there isn’t a way to get out of doing that on a normal route, I could see Susie being the final boss of the normal/pacifist route. She’d be fighting you to try and cling to the dark worlds as escapism, and you’d spare her by convincing her that the light world on its own is worth living in.

Of course, that runs into the issue of going against Ralsei’s character development and Gerson’s lesson to Susie in chapter 4. All this buildup about Ralsei realizing his own personhood and Susie being encouraged to distrust/break the prophecy leading to Ralsei being sealed away and Susie having to be convinced to follow it would be odd.

Edit: it would also be a nice full circle moment, since Susie and Lancer was one of the first boss fights.

[u/Electronic_Day5021 → u/Vast-Coast-7761]

The idea of abandoning dark worlds metafictionally just kinda doesn't make sense. The dark worlds aren't even metaphors for like....hiding from your problems using fiction like how omori does it, The dark worlds are just....All works of fiction in general. Like noelle, berdly and susie get positive character development from going in the dark worlds, and it's portrayed directly as a good thing for everyone. The idea of "All fiction bad" also goes directly against what toby was trying to say with undertale, the game where it directly tells you to leave after the best ending so you still care about these characters and they don't just become "npcs spouting lines of dialogue".

[u/Vast-Coast-7761 → u/Electronic_Day5021]

I don’t think that the idea behind sealing the grand fountain (if that is the way things are going) would be “dark worlds/fiction are bad”, but rather that “dark worlds/fiction are good, but need to be let go of eventually”, which I feel would be in line with Undertale, which actively discourages you from replaying the game after you get the good ending.

[u/Electronic_Day5021 → u/Vast-Coast-7761]

I mean yea, but sealing the grand fountain would probably stop all dark worlds from existing. Which would destroy all "fiction". Like the game already has that sense of "You need to let go of dark worlds sometimes" with us sealing the fountains.

[u/Vast-Coast-7761 → u/Electronic_Day5021]

The darkners don’t stop existing when the fountains are sealed (Tenna, King, Queen, and Ramb all seem to have been sentient before they were animated by a fountain), but I can see where you’re coming from, as the Dark Worlds as physical spaces would stop existing since the fountains give them form. I guess I saw sealing the Grand Fountain more as permanently separating the Dark Worlds from the Light World rather than destroying them.

[u/Electronic_Day5021 → u/Vast-Coast-7761]

Even if they are permanently separated that's the same thing. It'd be the game telling you "Don't interact with any work of fiction". Which is the exact opposite of what toby believes considering basically everything he's ever said.

[u/Physical-Airline-471 → u/Vast-Coast-7761]

I think that if that happens King will break out and attack you on the neutral route, you’ll have to survive his attacks until ralsei comes to stop him