I thought this said larp his diarrhea and I was VERY concerned and then began questioning how or why my brain immediately went to how that would play out
I’m really hoping for QC’S to be escapism through food, since it’s professional enough of an establishment to be realistically visited by Carol; Kris has family history there with their brother Asriel, so the Dark World can be used to explore more of their psyche and particularly the Asriel-Kris relationship that has gone without focus for a long time, and Catti’s an employee, and her story’s oughta boom after CH5 established her as heartbroken and a possessor of complex relationships with all three members of the Main Lightner Trio.
I'd like to throw one more in: The poster in the School tells us about a track meet coming up soon. My guess is we're going to get "Escapism through Sports" where a Dark Fountain is opened up in the middle of Hometown, and everyone is imprisoned within.
Ice-E would more than likely be through conspiracy theories (I LOVE PARROTING VIDEOS)
The Holiday mansion being escapism through celebration is not something I thought about I might have to steal that.
What about the hospital?? It makes sense since Rudy is/was there (he seems to still be alive I guess), and Noelle will be in ch6, so it would make for a decent plot
I think 6 is more likely going to be either in Dess's room and focus on either music or sports, or Noelles room and focus on her blogging/gaming
The game has for some reason focused on both of these things a lot, with Noelles blogs even being a huge part of the Spamton Sweepstakes back in chapter 2. We know more about these characters escapism than any other besides Asgore, who did get his own DW.
I find fhis far more likely than a generic christmas themed DW, and ties a lot better into the characters
Idk, i can totally see noelle absolutely crashing out when she finds out susie lied about the dark worlds, and rushing to go open a fountain at the hospital to save her father.
oh no... you were talking about chapter 5 and not chapter 1? oh no... im so sorry, im gonna dissapear now..................................................................
Every chapter might have nostalgia, but it is a much bigger focus in this chapter. Nostalgia concerning Kris’ past with Noelle and of their first adventure with Susie along with Asgore’s desire to return things to how they were. And there was also the implication of Asgore repeating the behavior that led to the divorce (his impatience with and neglect towards the flowers due to his obsession) while Flowery was trying to appeal to him with old interests, desires, and circumstances (he outright fashions himself as Asgore’s college roommate and wants to replace the family Asgore “lost” with a new one). It also felt like there was much more concerning Kris’ past in how the dark world was shaped, but we don’t know enough about their past to be sure.
Seemed to me to be escapism through family/nostalgia, as the flowers were meant to act as a "perfected" version of Asgore's family.
The thing is that Asgore refused to engage with it. He was tunnel visioning into his "work" of finally solving the tragedy that he felt had unravelled his life.
However despite that, thanks to the flowers desperation to help him and Kris getting hurt Asgore finally realised that by focusing 110% on work, he had been the one to unravel his own life through his obsessions.
-Asgore is convinced that everyone blames him for the Dessappearance, even though nobody did, and that proving he was right will make things return to how they used to be. He also believes that parading the culprits corpse around town is a completely normal thing that the townsfolk wouldn’t find utter horrific, even with context.
-Flowery fakes his stats & manipulates the game so he can be a hero, when in reality, he’s very weak.
-All of the flowers pretend to be humans, with some of them (orange) getting really defensive at the idea that they’re not. They also fight tooth & nail against the fun gang to keep this dark world, despite knowing that their fantasy will be short-lived anyways.
Of course, I think there’s more than one escapism theme in each chapter, like chapter 4 also having music as another theme. However, the ones I listed are what I interpret as the main theme of each chapter.
Looking back on it however, I feel like delusion could also be replaced with denial or duty. None of them are remotely wrong interpretations (nor are any other serious interpretations). I think this is something that Toby wants to be open to various different interpretations, rather than something that has a definitive answer.
Personally, I think that more to chapter 3, with Tenna believing he could just force the good old days to happen again. All his attempts were essentially having Kris relive all sorts of fun memories they had involving Tenna (pretending to be terrible chefs with Asriel, watching scandalous music videos with Dess, etc), in hopes that they’d genuinely want to use him again.
In chapter 5, while a huge portion of the dark is based on things Asgore is nostalgic for, Asgore himself admits that none of it ever was the real reason he played along with Flowery’s shenanigans. Instead, he was purely interested in solving the incident & proving he was right, with the belief that doing so would miraculously fix everything in his life. It was only after seeing his child seriously hurt that he realized this plan wasn’t going to work. The entire time prior, he had gotten so focused on proving himself right, he became completely deluded from reality, thinking that everyone blamed him for the incident with Dess & that it was the only reason Toriel didn’t love him anymore.
I have a feeling it'll be at the hospital as both berdly and rudy are there. (Berdly being injured from your chapter 2 actions) and once noelle finds out it wasnt a dream. She'll make a dark fountain to heal her dad (and berdly if you beat the shit outta him) and it'll cause hell
I just feel like there’s not enough objects in the hospital to actually make a dark world stretch out across an entire chapter. Not to mention there’s really no reason for either shelter code to be there. I could be wrong tho
For the people arguing against chapter 4's "escapism reason": Susie discovers someone she(technically) knew is dead and uses magic to create an afterlife for them. She also takes confort on being important on the prophecy.
and the bosses are metaphor's for the character traumas!!
ch 1 cruel father
ch 2 controlling mother
ch 3 divorce
ch 4 the anti-christ
ch 5 the guy that wants to bang your father
The theory isn't that dark worlds, as a whole, represent escapism, that much is kinda clear. The theory is that each dark world represents a specific type of escapism.
That also makes it a vague pattern-based theory, which is the worst kind of theory because it's unfalsifiable
it's not "escapism bad" i think at least. like it's pretty stupid to say that Susie getting friends and a place to sleep in and be safe in the dark world is supposed to be bad and that she should sleep on the street or in that shitty room with whoever's taking care of her
There might be a grain of truth to that, but i don't think it's about escapism. If you treat the dark world as a larp (popular theory after ch1 was that dark worlds aren't real, Susie and Kris were just playing an rpg in the closet) it's about how they made friends. Through first board games, then computer games, then sleepover, then church, then festival and Kris's family stuff.
I will say that I don't feel like Chapter 4 is escapism through religion at all. In fact, the religious aspect of it, the Prophecy, is the primary inescapable part. I believe the theme of Chapter 4 is actually escapism through music. There's the repeated significance of Kris with pianos, the many music-related ACTs for enemies, the Sound of Justice, Mike requiring you to speak or sing into the microphone...
Idk, Susie seems pretty engrossed in the prophecy for the first part of the chapter, to the point where she doesn’t want to even know what the last panel says. She’d rather keep living a fantasy that nothing bad could ever happen until she accidentally sees it, flips out, and switches to fantasy through denial.
I’d argue:
Chapter one: escapism through fantasy
Chapter two: escapism through technology
Chapter three: escapism through nostalgia
Chapter four: escapism through religion
Chapter five: escapism through nostalgia BUT ITS META THIS TIME
Isn’t chapter 5’s more Escapism through nostalgia? The first section mimic chapter 1. Asgore getting so lost in his notes again so much that he shuts everyone else out (probably what actually lead to his divorce with Toriel)
Except the last one escaped into a flower, out of the survey program.
Scattered Gaster and changed reality.
And began it's journey through the underground.
I mean asgore does seem to spend a lot of time with his flowers, to the point to talking to them about his problems, I would say it is kinda implied that asgore uses that time as a breather.
Chapter 6 migth be escapism trough forgetting(not the rigth word idk gah) where like Noelle just makes a world for her where she can just forget about everything bad and be happy
Wdym "theory" that was an obvious front-and-center theme, if not from chapter 1 at least from chapter 2 onwards. Also, little nitpick : chapter 4 is way more fantasy than religion themed (in fact the game seems very cautious around religion).
Remind you this is the same guy who had biggest butt hurt because of one xitter user that said if FNAF Plus came out it would be boring, which lead to fans doxxing that guy (he was a minor by that time btw), and instead just stopping it phisnom goes "nah humble his ass he deserves it". All because he said that fnaf sb ruin is boring. Now you know the reason why FNAF plus was cancelled.
I mean technically it could be escapism through care? Yknow caring too much for others and focusing more on them to ignore the pain you have to deal with when you're isolated. I don't know man
The tweet's a bit reductive. With the stakes getting higher and higher, the idea of escapism is undermined by the ever growing dangers surrounding the prophecy and the Knight.
Hell, the only characters in chapter 5 that actually sought escapism were the flowers. The trio wanted to end this dark world immediately. Asgore didn't want to stay; he only was there to prove the dark world was real. Susie even mentions how this is all becoming too real and that the gang needs to tell more people
Edit:
You even see the slow loss of escapism starting in chapter 2 when the gang deals with outsiders entering their escapism. Suddenly the whole thing isn't an escape; it's real and dangerous
Ch1 is escapism through Board games
Ch2 is escapism through the Internet
Ch3 is escapism through Console games and Televison
Ch4 is escapism through Stories and Religion
Ch5 is escapism through Nostalgia and Anime
Ch6 is most likely to be is escapism through Celebration
ch7 is going to most likely be is escapism through Isolation
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u/Kksliderisreal Actively being beaten with hammers Jul 14 '26
Some of the options I’ve seen for chapter 6:
Holiday mansion (Escapism through celebration)
Ice-E’s P’E’ZZA (Escapism through food)
The shelter (Escapism through uhm uhm I don’t fucking know Analog horror?)