What The Four Shadows Foreshadow

The Dark Bulb Puzzles in the Queen's Mansion claim to "cast shadows" instead of light, but are these shadows something more? What if they secretly hint about the "dark" parts of the character's lives?

Also holy crap did I just make a 27 minute video in almost exactly 2 weeks? Madness!

0:00 Intro
2:29 Disclaimers
3:14 Bluebird
5:00 Purple House
9:41 Yellow Fire
11:43 Green Hat?
13:48 Green Sea?
19:15 What Shape is the Orange One?
20:14 Who is the Orange One Meant For?
21:12 Wait... is this character Orange?
23:49 What does this imply?
25:31 Darker Yet Darker
26:33 Outro

[HalfBreadChaos]

Okay so the video is "up" but I'm still adding Chapters and fixing the Subtitles (since youtube tends to butcher the timings) so nobody panic!

Some quick FAQ stuff

Q: Why are you calling them Shadows? I thought they were Lights, like from Spotlights?
A: The sign for the first puzzle reads: "These Darkbulbs cast a Bright Shadow on the ground."

Sorry about that, I meant to include that in the video but sometimes I stay with a theory for so long I certain details for granted, and then just assume everyone knows them already. Oopsie doopsie!

Q: I just thought it was just Homestuck
A: Listen friend, I was there in the beginning, when it was just John Egbert in his room trying not to get pied in the face by his dad. I remember having my mind blown the day Andrew released the Piano Animation and suddenly Sound in our Webcomics was on the table. This is to say, I was a big fan of Homestuck.

I'd say it's definitely 'calling back' to Homestuck, but it's not an obvious 1:1. It's the wrong number of shadows, the colors of the shadows don't match the objects in an 'obvious' way, that is to say if you show your casual Homestuck fan those shadows, they won't be able to easily or quickly match the colors with the objects, so as a reference it's not an 'obvious' parallel.

That doesn't mean Homestuck shouldn't be considered, already I'm seeing some interesting discussion around the Orange Knight of Time, unfolding below. I'm pretty excited to see what other theories spawn from that.

What I'm saying is, don't let "It's a Homestuck Reference" be a thought terminating statement, because it could be more fuel for the theory fire, or you could choose to ignore it entirely, since Toby has stated he wants his games to be *able* to stand alone without requiring the audience be familiar with other media.

(He does still make a ton of fun references though, I'd love to list all the ones I've found sometime).

Q: Wait what is that meme character at 23:20?

Q: If that was last night how the heck did you get that in there so fast?
A: I actually 'made' a different meme character and animated it jumping at the screen, but I liked Toby's better and as long as I just switched the faces, I didn't have to reanimate/re-sync anything in the video to add it in, so I promise that didn't cause the delay.

Q: If not that, then why the delay?
A: Probably trying to make a 27 minute video in two weeks, oops! Shorter videos HBC! You are ONE PERSON.

Can you imagine if I hadn't split up the Don't Forget video? That was originally 4 paragraphs of this video before I realized what was about to happen.

Q: You misgendered Kris!
A: Dang it! I am so bad at pronouns. I used "they" every other time but I accidentally said "his brother" somewhere in there. Oops.

Q: And Seam!
A: Gosh DARN it. I am so sorry Seam fans, they're one of my favorite characters and yet it *keeps happening*

Q: What is that reference at 9:00?
A: That's Psychonauts. The quality is fuzzy because apparently cutscene graphics didn't update with the rest of the game. I did my best though.

Q: Why is Bill Cipher-
A: That's my Mouse Pointer

Q: Pronouns?
A: They/Them

Q: Where is the Bonus Content? I really want to see it!
A: There's actually quite a lot for this one, and I'm still tweaking everything, so uh, it'll be on Patreon within a week or two.

[Anonymous-owkr]

Susie is most likely not homeless, if you walk around the town with Susie most houses are fine to her, but one specific house gets Susie nervous and she asks "Kris, weren't we going to your house?"

[rarebeeph]

kris+berdly: hiding their mediocrity
susie: hiding her home life and insecurity
noelle: hiding her magic
ralsei: hiding his identity
papyrus: hiding

[Majoraspersona]

The yellow shadow seems to represent the sun more than it does fire in general to me. While it doesn't make a big difference, it should be noted that the sun does have a few associations with Christmas. Moreover, the sun is a star, and stars definitely have a ton of associations with Christmas.

In fact, think of the two most common things that go on the very top of Christmas trees: stars...and angels.

[Tom-]

I think the parallel between Susie's potentially dysfunctional home life and her idolising of Kris' home life is very telling, since technically Kris' home life is also 'dysfunctional' due to divorce, but its seems like paradise compared to what she's used to. The theme of home and comparison and contrast between the potentially dysfunctional side and the seems ideal but is also secretly dysfunctional side is interesting.

[Sugar_Crash]

Two things! A) I think, if Ralsei's IS a Partial Hat, it could represent how we only have a partial understanding of him. We only have a part of the image, because we only know one side of Ralsei
B) The fire for Noelle could represent her Father's Illness! Very often, Fever, and illness are represented with fire imagery, as they cause your body to 'Burn up'

[pompousproductions]

An interesting thing about Noelle’s Ice Powers. When a monster is frozen solid it doesn’t fade, it just stays put in a solid form…it doesn’t move…it doesn’t leave.

Noelle’s Ice Powers might stem from the fact that she doesn’t want anyone to leave her. Dess seems to be absent, her father is sick and might even die…Noelle probably feels incredibly alone. (Heck she’s probably internalized this as something humiliating which is why she’s into Susie’s rough and demeaning nature).

[skeletonbirdanimations]

I always thought they represented what they struggle against/with

Birdly, himself and his own impossible standards. Seriously has major 'gifted kid' syndrome.
Susie, a safe place or people to call home and to feel safe in. She lacks that stability which is likely why she acts out to express that instability outwardly.
Noel, power and opposite forces, things that go against her 'grain' as it were. Fire melts ice, she stuggles with dealing with something stronger than her.
Kris, the players presence. Being under their 'boot' and having their autonomy suppressed.
Ralsie, the overwhelming nature of responsibility or just general being overwhelmed. Like a tsunami wave overwhelming a town

[ProcyonLotorGaming]

Regarding orange, the only time we see it with significance to canon is whenever Ralsei tells the legends in the beginning of Chapter 1 and the end of Chapter 2's normal route. Could orange be referencing the roaring? We also see that the orange shape could be smoke, similar to that of the smoke whenever Kris opens the fountain in Chapter 2. Kris, while their main color is blue, has orange accents. Their sword and shield are orange, and in the overworld they have orangeish-yellowish skin. This could point to Kris being the knight, but we still have 5 chapters to go so this could be completely incorrect.

[EddieMan]

There's something I've noticed about deltarune, and it's that only certain characters have chat box sprites. Specifically about the kids in Kris's class. Obviously, Kris, Suzie, Berdly, and Noelle have chat box sprites, but there are also Catti and Jockington, both of which do have chat box sprites. But the other kids in the class don't. I think this implies that either Catti or Jockington (or both perhaps) will join the others. My bets are more on Catti, but I do also think that Jockington is absolutely a possibility and might be the green rather than ralsei. We all know Berdly kind of started out as a sorta joke character and became very serious, so maybe history will repeat itself???

[dillon]

4:25 It's actually kind of weird that the trophies ralsei puts into kris' room is an exact mirror of the ones in asriel's room, it could just be toby reusing sprites but I kind of doubt it considering that they've been recolored to match the lighting of the room.

[kellythekitty]

well, i noticed the bird shadow is smiling, and berdly is always smiling until you learn more about him, maybe it means like a fake smile, until you eventually become friends with him, where he eventually shows an actual, genuine smile? idk im just guessing here.

And about the house one being related to susie, maybe the reason she doesn't show us her house is because she feels more at home with kris, ralsei, and lancer, with her friends, than she does at her actual house. After all, there is a saying, *"Home is where the heart is"...*

[garuluialternative]

This theory that I made is absolutely batshit insane and probably not even thought up by Toby, but...
The duck-like shape in the light that's supposed to resemble Berdly's backstory could be a subtle reference to the ugly duckling, which also fits the description of a story about a bird being accepted by their peers.

[lasagna]

The Grand Fountain has supposedly existed "for millennia". But... it's just in a closet? In a school? I don't know about you, but to me it seems a little unlikely that the supply closet has existed for millennia.
So what if the original dark world is deep in the ocean? It's pretty much the oldest thing on earth. It's deep, and dark. Now this isn't a _good_ theory, but it's wormed its way into my head now.
It would make much more sense if the school was built _above_ wherever it is that the Grand Fountain pulls from, than for the school to BE where the Grand Fountain pulls from. Perhaps the land hometown is built on used to be an ocean; perhaps there's an aquifer downstairs that connects to the ocean. When you first fall, you hear Ocean.ogg, as you mentioned, and the, uh... "life" down there certainly resembles the bizarre lifeforms you'd find in the deep ocean in my opinion. Onionsan only heard _part_ of a song. A song they've heard the full version of coming from the ocean. I don't know about you, but to me, Don't Forget seems like only a small part of a song too. I get the feeling the full version will play at the end of Chapter 7 and everyone playing the game will immediately bawl their eyes out.

[hthtrhuu]

20:21 yeah i still think its crazy that the fandom made sans pink slippers canon

[douglas]

I just checked the Bluebird (animal) wikipedia page, and at the very bottom there's something very intersting: "In traditional Iroquois cosmology, the call of the bluebird is believed to ward off the icy power of Sawiskera, also referred to as Flint, the spirit of the winter. Its call caused Sawiskera to flee in fear and the ice to recede"

That's so so so specific and it fits so well, Bluebird is strong against the Spirit of Winter, like Noelle? Or even her mum ?
Is Berdly secretly OP?

[korrochime]

The yellow shadow for Noelle might in fact represent a "sun" instead of a flame. As seen with spamton's whole deal, the sun (and "light" in general) is oftentimes associated with the concept of Heaven, aka Freedom. Spamton and Noelle have a seriously strange amount of connections with eachother, with Noelle saying that she finds spamton's dealmakers familiar if you try and equip them to her in the games code iirc, and him calling her "angel" on the weird route. There's also the fact that Noelle is heavily associated with angel imagery in other places across the game (see her wanting to grow wings and fly away in the dark world, the angel figure she made in youth group that's in her father's hospital room, and the arguable interpretation that she fulfills undertale's angel of death prophecy in the snowgrave route). Personally I feel the yellow shadow is rather a sun, and represents Noelle wanting to obtain heaven, or a freedom she cant have with the life she currently has with a very controlling mother.

You could also apply the yellow sun to spamton, but I'd be hesitant to do so as he isn't a main cast member. (If one does choose to do so, the parallels between him and Noelle only continue to grow, with the NEO body looking like an angel with its wings clipped) However, *Jevil* of all characters seems to have a strange connection to Susie and is also purple, so maybe each secret boss could also correspond colorwise to another shadow? Jevil is trapped in card castle, and the shadow could be interpreted as a sort of tower...

[aieza]

That's some interesting *FOUR SHADOWING*
Please kill me.

[charlieburnham]

18:15 If dark worlds are escapist fantasies, and the roaring is the world being consumed by dark worlds, then by transitivity the roaring is the world being consumed by escapist fantasies. If your right about characters feeling the call of the dark worlds as something offering to assuage their lonliness, its definitely foreshadowing for what the roaring might look like on the light world side of things. Furthermore, when I first heard the Papyrus is the knight theory, I thought it was ridiculous because I can't see Papyrus being involved in anything sinister, but wanting to help people overcome their lonliness is definitely a motive that might get Papyrus to act as the knight, especially considering his poor judgement and naivete. Plus, we all know that Toby loves a sympathetic antagonist with altruistic motives.

[mistycomet]

You know, I actually speculated that Kris threw their red horns into the ocean when they got tired of them. (Way to go littering, Kris...)
As for the tea theory, I think people really underestimate how much HP Ralsei Tea gives Kris. I mean, Kris has only known Ralsei for a few days, and while they weren't on great terms with Susie, they really like Susie, as revealed in several dialogues. And Noelle was their old friend. Of course they'll get more HP from their tea. They just don't know Ralsei quite as well. Just because they didn't take an instant and immovable liking to Ralsei doesn't mean they dislike him.