# KRIS IS LIKE THE FUCKING EARTH, BABY
-> ![ARRRRRIGHT!!!!](https://arch-img.b4k.co/vg/1704744514824.png) <-
This obviously calls for an explanation, which I will GLADLY provide!
Let's start with the obvious: Kris has some kinda weird connection to apples, right? One has to wonder why. Why are they explicitly stated to wear apple-scented shampoo? Why does their tea (when Susie drinks it) taste like apple juice? Why does Susie compare Kris to the apple to threaten them in the sweepstakes? These all have perfectly normal reasons to happen in the story, but this is a DELTARUNE theory, straightforward and mundane is unthinkable.
As per Radiation's wishes to see Deltarune as its own thing seperate from Undertale, I will be using this piece of dialogue from Undertale to bring forth a certain point.
>Well, guess every apple has its CORE, heheh.
The origin of this text is Charles who is a worker at the CORE and it makes sense in context. But let's take it out of context because I have nothing better to do. Every apple has its core. The earth also HAS A CORE (shocking).
![A diagram of the Earth. It is made up of a core, mantle and crust.](https://i.imgur.com/SjT8hUj.gif)
COINCIDENCE? Yeah, probably, but anyways... This is already very interesting, but that's not where it ends. The supplementary material of the sweepstakes highlight other aspects of the apple's composition.
>Then she BIT THE WHOLE APPLE IN HALF! Including the core. She even ate the seeds, which, um, contain arsenic if you didn't know. X) Don't eat those Susie... anyway, Kris didn't react, so she continued.
Once again the core is mentioned, yes, but also arsenic. Usually when someone talks about how apple seeds are harmful, they mention cyanide instead of arsenic, but it may be the reason that wasn't done here is because arsenic brings to mind something else, the fact that it is widely distributed in the Earth's crust.
For apples, that's it, but the reason I bring them up is because they're related to something Queen says, which ties into the next part. 
>Kris Cross Applesauce
Applesauce is already covered, next is 'Cross'. Sure, it could mean several things aside from this Earth connection: Monster Kid's necklace, save points, the eyes in that first dark world area which look like crosses, a D-pad, etc. But you know how this goes, there's something else.
For this I'm going to have to thank some anon's post I stumbled upon in the archives, bringing my attention to these symbols when Kris opens a dark fountain. (Source: https://www.spriters-resource.com/pc_computer/deltarune/sheet/183527/)
![shitty snip](https://i.imgur.com/4iclJdU.png)
I deliberately made it ant-sized, so you're just going to have to take my word for it that it somewhat looks like a Solar/Sun Cross. Like the rest of this theory, it sounds a bit counter-intuitive. Why am I arguing it looks like a Sun Cross when my theory is in the Earth's favor? That's because the symbol is often used to represent the Earth instead of the Sun.
![Sun Cross, an equilateral cross with a circle drawn around it.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/98/Crossed_circle.svg/750px-Crossed_circle.svg.png)
![Solar System Symbols: The one used for the Earth is the Sun Cross in question.](https://smd-cms.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/ss_symbols_multi_800.jpg)
Now that's Cross dealt with. All that's left is... everything else.
Once again, something I'll pull from ~~my ass~~ Undertale is this in the library. 
>While monsters are mostly made of magic, human beings are mostly made of water.
I will ignore the fact that this is a different world with different laws, and instead look at the alternative. A human being in a place which seems to only have monsters would be the only one there to be mostly made of water. About 70% of the Earth's surface is covered in water in contrast to the other planets. (Ignoring other ocean worlds, those seem to only be non-planets.) Interesting.
Parallels may be drawn with other parts of the Earth and Kris-related things, however my arguments for these are much weaker. For example, the mantle.
>it's been fun to see so many arbitrary decisions i made in these original sprites carried forth into the rest of the game, as well as fanworks etc. (ie the blue shading on kris's mantle & their pink sword)
Taken from the developer interviews, Chess refers to Kris' cloth thing as a mantle. Interesting, but not substantial. Not only is this the single instance it's called that as in-game Ralsei instead calls it an ascot, it also only appears in the dark world. There are also the Shadow/Sky Mantles Kris could potentially wear, but those will probably be optional and still dark world exclusive. 
One could also make an argument for the crust (aside from the arsenic thing) and how Kris can make pies and has some sort of ICE-E connection, mascot of the pizzeria, pizzas have crusts, but that sounds a bit dumb even to me.
Also also, King calls Kris 'Lightbringer'. Could mean Lucifer, could mean Phosporus, the 'morning star' which is actually just a planet. Though this is probably about something else, since the planet in question is Venus, not Earth.
(Speaking of Lucifer, there's this Sigil/Seal that sort of looks like the DELTA RUNE, but that could just be my apophenia talking.)
![The Sigil Of Lucifer (or Seal). From the perspective of a person with patternicity and horrible eyesight who is squinting from a distance, it bears a slight resemblance to the DELTA RUNE symbol.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7b/Sigil_of_Lucifer.svg/130px-Sigil_of_Lucifer.svg.png)
That's all I have. Unless we start getting into some REAL far-fetched territory.
So we all know about W. D. Gaster, right?
Yes, yes, he's a bit of a controversial (non-)character, but hear me out! W. D. probably stands for Wing Dings, Entry Number 17 and all that. The creators of the Wingdings font are Charles Bigelow and Kris Holmes.
Charles was already mentioned earlier as a worker of the CORE, Gaster's creation, but it appears he's also in Deltarune, a filename of "most_improved_1997". The font was released in 1990, 7 chapters... But I digress.
Kris, I originally thought to just be a cool coincidence or reference since K in Wingdings is a poker face symbol. But what if there's yet another comparison to be made?
>Beware of the man who speaks in hands.
Classic Riverperson line. Not confirmed, but probably referring to Gaster because of the amount of hands in the Wingdings font. Multiple hands, you could say, maybe even a hundred. A Hundred-Hander?
The Hecatoncheires, beings in Greek mythology, three giants each with fifty heads and one hundred arms. (Just to clarify, the heads could be symbolic of all the potential Gaster sprites together, combined with the piece that one follower is holding. Or maybe the 2 heads on Mysteryman, several Gasterblaster attacks, whatever.) Might seem like a weird jump, Gaster himself is usually associated with the Devil, but one could say the same for the Dreemurrs which are similar to the greek Chimera in some areas while still being horned pyromancer rulers of the underground.
Reason I compare these two is because the mother of the Centimanes is Gaia, the Greek Earth goddess.
A plethora of other connections arises: she created the Titans with Ouranus, the primordial sky god, maybe something related to whoever the Angel is? The father of the Hundred-Handers is either the previously mentioned Ouranus or the primordial sea god, deepening the water connections in Deltarune. A myth claims that one of the Hecatoncheires invented armor via metalworking - blacksmithing like Gerson, a turtle, Gaster is said to work slower than Alphys, the Gasterblasters resemble turtle skulls...
Truthfully, I don't exactly know where I'm going with all this, I don't even know what it really means for why Kris stabbed the Earth. But maybe publicly posting this will have some positive effects for future theory crafting and whatnot.
With that said, thank you for reading thus far. This has been festering in my mind for quite a while. That's all for now.

edit 9/10.2.2024 (it is the transfer from one day to the next at the time of writing.)
According to some folks who've played through the Japanese version of Deltarune, at some point Susie mistakes the fountain for a person because 'fountain' has been translated as 'izumi'/'泉' which means spring of water, but can also be a given name. Although I can't point to you where exactly this is done since I know nothing about the language of Nippon nor the DR translation, this hearsay has been repeated enough times that it'd be stranger if a bunch of unrelated people somehow ended up spreading the same rumor, so... This accidental anthropomorphism of the fountain could mean Kris=Earth isn't too far fetched since the idea has at least been hinted at, something to bridge the gap between object personification = darkner and celestial object personification = ???.
Speaking of fountains, the grand fountain apparently being the only one needed to achieve the balance between light and dark, the educated guess of a reason being due to its special properties (being able to house Darkners without turning them to stone if they don't 'fit in', less apparent but probably being more accessible to Lightners, etc.) > The Earth seems to be the one who bears this unending pillar of darkness as with the others. | The SOUL/Player seems to be necessary for creating a new future per the words of the twitter takeover. > We control Kris. (Not a perfect comparison since it appears that the Vessel was originally going to be used, but Kris is still viable and combined with everything else...) Keep this in mind.
Now onto the thing I can't believe wasn't mentioned earlier:
>Then, her heart pounding...
>The EARTH will draw her final breath.
Come on, this is where the Earth is really first introduced as a 'character' and probably the most front and center mention so far! Better late than never, I suppose, and it ties into a later point that gets more speculative.
Looking at all this, already intertwined with the themes of destiny (?) and the whole thing about sealing dark fountains, I also can't help but think it might lead to better understanding the character of Kris.
My viewpoint is this: although I can't decipher why they put the SOUL back in, I believe part of ripping it out has to do with the Earth, certainly among other things we don't even know of. Think about it: even though it's supposed to save the world from devastation, the Earth supposedly can't be saved according to the legend, doomed to die at the end of this adventure. And there's that certain interpretation of the unused Ch. 1 introduction where a voice which sounds like Susie tells Kris to wake up. \ The Earth is the only planet we know of which supports life, so far Kris seems to be the only one capable of wielding the SOUL (excluding the Vessel probably), so THAT'S a responsibility exclusively resting on their shoulders! Yay! \  (Bear with me, this next one gets very speculative, almost fanficy!) The Earth rotates around the Sun, an eternal 'revolution'. In this case, the character used to symbolize the Sun would probably be Asriel. Not just because he's white like the Sun (and it also helps if he's blonde like his dad) and this repurposed star theming he's got going on, but he structurally serves the same purpose of being this big, important figure/celestial object (golden boy of the town/star of the solar system) (at least in comparison to Kris/the Earth) whom the planets are dependent on, they can only dream of living in his shadow. Being siblings, they have a pretty close relationship, no doubt a positive one (as opposed to another world...), but Kris may tire of being in this heliocentric system and living in someone else's shadow, that they take to living in THE shadows (the dark world) with Susie, someone who doesn't even know that Asriel exists in some playthroughs - which would explain the +120 HP kek - where they are more likely to be judged by their own merits. (Unfortunately the SOUL puts a bit of a wrench in that.) With this thought in mind, it's interesting to think about Kris getting a shield for defense, the symbol for the Sun also being a shield, and Kris' DW room seeming like a flipped and discolored version of Asriel's LW side, this time with even more stars. \ No wonder they wanna slash some tires.
Also - Kris, uh, they could be likened to a reflective surface? Susie was totally projecting in that one blog post and the Player is meant to do the same so Kris doing their own thing hits harder? This last part reminds me of another thing, actually.
https://deltarune.fandom.com/wiki/SAVE
The special text for the SAVE file behaviours before completing the first chapter. In particular, the specific language use. Reflection, subsumed, barren. But one line makes me wonder, was all this for naught?
>IT IS IMMUNE TO ITS OWN IMAGE.
If it is literally Kris=Earth, then that adds some difficulties in fountain sealing and fountain making, which directly involve Kris messing with the Earth. Makes me a bit doubtful. Nevertheless, all of the previous connections still exist. Perhaps they are similar, but not one in the same. Maybe like the Player expected to project onto Kris, then a distinction being made, the same can be said for the Earth... possibly vicariously living through someone she could relate to. As above, so below. Thus, could a more apt line be...?
>IT CONFORMED TO THE REFLECTION.
~~(or maybe kris becomes less like the earth with a removed soul, like without its core, so theyre different enough the fountain creating can still occur.)~~

edit 7.3.2024
>YOU CAN SEE YOUR REFLECTION IN A PUDDLE, BUT...
>DON'T LET A BODY OF WATER DETERMINE YOUR SELF-WORTH!!!
Not even going to try and justify how this completely unrelated water dialogue from Papyrus connects to everything else, just putting it out there.
Something else I'm keeping an eye on: ICE-E's P"e"zza replaces the i in pizza with an e. Following this logic, Kris would turn into Kr"e"s. Gaia is sometimes spelled as Gaea. Also another name used by the Romans was Tellus which is similar to Sunkus, only putting that in here to make this update a bit longer.

edit 28.4.2024
>Also also, King calls Kris 'Lightbringer'. Could mean Lucifer, could mean Phosporus, the 'morning star' which is actually just a planet. Though this is probably about something else, since the planet in question is Venus, not Earth.
'Something else' I'm sure has already been speculated on by others in a much more comprehensive manner than I could manage, so let's focus on what I said about Venus instead: after further brainstorming, it has occurred to me that there is much more to say about the possible ties here than just the string of associated terms anyone could have put together with a quick search.
To start off, it is true that Earth is not the planet 'Lightbringer' as a term originates from, but it being Venus instead is the second-best option. Due to their similar size and share of other physical and orbital characteristics, they are sometimes called sister planets. In fact, it is postulated that Venus used to once have surface water and a habitable condition. Not Earth, but it still brings to mind related imagery. One can also find similarities in humanity's understanding of the planets; take the symbols they are associated with. Venus' (♀) symbol, aside from seemingly depicting - in the context of a demo where reflective surfaces like water and glass/crystals are recurring motifs - the hand-*mirror* of the goddess of LOVE... (cue out of context Papyrus call dialogue!)
>Papyrus: MAYBE WE NEED TO THINK MORE ABSTRACTLY.
>MAYBE THE L STANDS FOR...
>LOVE.
>Undyne: But isn't love supposed to be FIERY RED!?
>Like a cartoony human-heart?
...is akin to the Earth's symbols (🜨/♁) in that they consist of a circle and cross. 
Now, let's focus on that second symbol for a bit.
![Picture of an antique globus cruciger, an orb surmounted by a cross.](https://symbolsage.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/RARE-Processional-Globus-Cruciger-767x1153.jpg){500px:700px}
You could say it resembles the holy hand grenade/globus cruciger. It's a sign of the Christian God's dominion of the world represented by the orb, portrayed in the hands of rulers and angels. What really stuck out to me, however, was the meaning of 'cross-bearing orb' in Latin, since Kris as a name could be derived from Christopher, an English name of Greek origin meaning "Christ-bearer." Interesting. (Please ignore the fact that none of these symbols have clearly appeared in the actual games.)
Another thing of note may be found in the mystery surrounding Penumbra Phantasm. (There's some controversy around the track actually being put in Deltarune since it was unreleased and originally meant for H\*mestuck, thus more focus will be put on the ideas Robert may have took with him into future projects.) When asked about it, Tobuscus ominously replied "AT "SHADOW'S EDGE, " SHATTER THE TWILIGHT REVERIE." referencing another post which read "The edge of the shadow, where reality and dream meet." The average person who has used up their valuable time to get to this part of my text surely already has connected some dots on the matter, but in regard to this theory it validates my previous speculation that, to Kris, the dark world is the 'umbra' mostly untouched by the Sun (Asriel).
![Diagram of the Sun, Earth and it's shadow containing two distinct parts: the UMBRA is the part of the shadow where all direct sunlight is blocked by the Earth; the PENUMBRA of the shadow is where the Earth only blocks some of the sunlight.](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Xu-Ming-6/publication/318124646/figure/fig2/AS:667792722370561@1536225600293/Earths-penumbra-and-umbra.png)
The keyword here is mostly, there are still references such as his room in Queen's Mansion and the question mark that is Ralsei, who could be likened to the Moon as they both reflect a foreign light source (like with his appearance and name anagram "reflecting" Asriel). The Moon also affects the tides, for Ralsei - it may be the obvious that he's affecting Kris by getting them roped into this prophecy business and what may or may not be happening when the Player sees what Susie's up to , or - affecting the Player/Soul, the water in this ramshackle metaphor, since new studies theorize that the our waters are older than both Earth and Sun which would fit in with the whole "intended for people who have completed UNDERTALE" thing. Take the second explanation with a grain of salt, though, the studies appear to be from 2014 at the earliest and I doubt Fox was looking at that kind of stuff YEARS after his fever dream... Or maybe this is just a wild goose chase and the only "Moon" is the baseball one you can punch in the mech fight.
(FYI, this is the point when the edit/update starts to have less of a basis in reality.)
...Looking at the sum of this theory, what felt to me like an earth-shattering revelation at the time, now just seems complementary to everything else Deltarune's story probably has going on. That's not a bad thing necessarily - even connecting some minor points like this can immerse the player in the experience of waiting 5 years for the release and make them appreciate the game that much more while trying not to think about the possibility that they're chasing their own tail and all of this is just breadcrumbs a rich furry put out for them because that rich furry was mentored by a juggalo who knew how to make the masses go crazy by expertly placing single pixels - but I have a feeling, a very trustworthy source, I know, that all of this is much bigger than what I can imagine. In the grand scheme of things, these minuscule comparisons mean very little. To illustrate my point I'll make another one: before Undyne the Undying's fight, "But the Earth Refused to Die" plays and executing check gives "Heroine reformed by her own DETERMINATION to save Earth." Aside from the clear in-game explanation that Undyne thinks she's the Earth's last hope, the planet is regarded with a character who has a connection to determination, water and possibly the power of NEO. The problem is I can't spin this into some sort of narrative when there are already so many unknown variables that could change our understanding of how everything works, not just this theory. So it looks more like the ramblings of a madman than a conclusive story line. I don't know. I'll just convince myself that there is an end goal in sight, a WHAM moment that makes everything worth it, Fangamer releasing a book that clarifies on everything in Undertale and Deltarune because the developers saw this brain worm of mine and decided that ambiguity just isn't worth it when it begets stupidity and frivolous pattern "recognition" in such a manner, etc. As long as it isn't a fool's errand. (Or maybe I'll end up like that H\*mestuck theory guy who got every single thing WRONG, honestly that would be pretty funny.)

edit 6.6.2024
>Revolve around the center, and look carefully. The darker it gets, the more you see.
Once again I'm taking things out of context but... LOOK AT THIS AND TELL ME THERE ISN'T AT LEAST A MODICUM OF TRUTH IN THESE ~3000 WORDS. THERE'S A FUCKING MOMENT WHERE A BLUE-COLORED CHARACTER REVOLVES AROUND SOMETHING... And that alone would be completely normal, but THAT SECOND PART? REMEMBER "ONLY EYES BLINDED BY DARKNESS CAN SEE THE WAY"? KRIS' FUCKING SHADOWY FACE BULLSHIT???? ["DARK GAIA"?](https://www.theoi.com/Protogenos/Gaia.html) Sorry, still reeling from the sudden realization. This, combined with a blue bead in the hospital following a set path... Maybe this is simply another of those frivolous connections. Who knows.

edit 26.7.2024
a) On Asriel representing the Sun: him carrying Kris to school could correspond with the Sun's gravity keeping the Earth in orbit, the pentagram star symbol sort of looks like a goat head/Baphomet and the sun is a star and boss monsters look like goats, yada yada, scroll back to the solar system symbols and you'll see that the sun's shield has a "boss" in the middle. Like "boss" monster.
b) This copy-pasted segment from one of my posts on the fourth channel about a treesicle video. World=Earth for the purposes of this theory.
>I liked the sentiment of the "Kris is the world" section. He got the right idea of balance and harmony from what I remember and fast forwarded through, as mentioned in the legend, and I like the idea behind Kris standing on the delta rune symbol as they rip their soul out meaning their struggle represents the greater one of the game and its world. Depending on how you look at the savefiles and save menu, they could support this interpretation. There's three, to me it shows that the middle file is the in-between of light and dark, heaven and earth, etc. bringing to mind that talk of balance and harmony. And messing around with them before completing Chapter 1, the language used by Gaster (?) gave me the impression that they are indeed different worlds, ocean planets like this one. Whatever savefile is chosen, if there is no prior savedata, in the name field is either Kris or (EMPTY).
c) The Wood Blade's description. "A wooden practice blade with a carbon-reinforced core." Somet**h**ing something player-r**e**inforced soul, self-inserting or vicariously **l**iving practice, I don't really know at this **p**oint or at any other.
d) A while back, I mentioned not knowing why Kris puts us back in their chest cavity. This has since changed. Surely there are other reasons as well, but I now believe that Kris did so in order to feel more in control, not only in the context of a possibility where the Soul was forced upon them by someone else, but also in the context of the Theogony where Ouranus hid Gaia's children inside of her. For the purposes of going off the deep end, the baby is you. While they are put in Gaia's position, they chose to simultaneously take the role of Ouranus, muddying the waters of their connection to the planet with a connection to the sky. God, I hope this makes sense.
However, this does not necessarily mean that whoever is supposed to portray the sky is the one who shackled us to this jaundiced human teenager. In my opinion, that honor or blame goes to the Earth. Envision it: in the depths of the grand fountain (or wherever it takes place), a scientist has successfully summoned a being of an ascended realm. He wishes to insert this being into an artificial vessel. Though, there is no need for this. The entity will serve as an early introduction to the fate that awaits who she has in mind, someone much more fitting and organic.
This fate, I believe to be one that awaits beyond the Earth's death. Assuming all goes as planned and the heroes fulfill the also man-made prophecy, she will draw her final breath. Then, will the populace be content with living on her corpse? Or will it turn to someone who is already so similar to her? When Kris had been handed the torch, the mantle of our world, while it had not been planned, the scientist did not intervene. For the sake of a new future, for the sake of his experiment, he let it be, as they were still a viable alternative. Why would this be any different?