What Happened to Dess Holiday? | Deltarune Theory/Analysis

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Ever Since Chapter 2, Dess Holiday has become a much more major part of the story. But the question still remains: what happened to her? Is she missing? Is she dead? Well, for a while we didn't really know much about Dess to make many reasonable conclusions. However, in light of some new information I think I may have a good explanation for what's going on with the eldest daughter of the Holiday family.

CREDITS:

Thank you to @capsulecomputrz on Twitter for their beautiful art of Dess in the thumbnail!
And shoutouts to @HUECYCLES for the Dess design!
Shoutouts to @Dorked for her comment during the Deltacast that inspired some of my ideas in this video!
And thank you to @1stworldmatt for the great editing!

Chapters:
0:00 - The Mystery of Dess Holiday
1:12 - Subscribe to be a [BIG SHOT]
1:31 - Is Dess Missing or Dead?
2:59 - Lost in the Code
9:13 - Conclusion
9:31 - See the next Video RIGHT NOW on Patreon!
9:45 - Outro

#deltarune
#deltarunechapter2
#undertale

[conwool]

Okay, here’s my theory. Kris saw Dess fall into a dark world, and they tried everything to get her back, which includes telling the police. Coincidentally, Undyne is the only monster in town that you have the *option* to tell about dark worlds, but she just laughs it off. So how would Kris get her to listen? By creating a scenario where Undyne had no other choice but to see the dark world for herself. During chapter two, kris learns how to create a dark fountain, and that’s where the plan comes together. Kris yeets the soul, sneaks out of the house, and slashes toriel’s tires, causing her to call the police. Then, when everyone else is asleep, Kris creates the fountain, and opens the front door. As a Police officer, Undyne (Or Napstablook, if they’re the one who answers) would have to at least come in to take a statement, and thus, fall right into the dark world. Why go through all this? *its the only way to get everyone to believe Kris about what they saw when Dess went missing*

[Prisinence]

What if that's why Kris has been trying to open more dark fountains? Because they know whose voice it is and they're trying to get to her?

[waluigiisthebest]

You forgot about how it’s mentioned that Kris, Noelle, Dess, and Asriel regularly looked in the forest bellow hometown, where the bunker is. And monster kid implies Kris has been down there before, and seen something. And the bunker makes sounds that sound like the garbage noise on the phone, aka Gaster sounds.

[wscamel]

Blind shot: Dess is definitely in the bunker. And there is a dark world inside. The bunker even have double doors. Every entrance to the dark world so far is double doored. And it's no coincidence because originally entrance to the part with computers in library was one door but then Toby Fox made it double door. Coincidence? I think NOT.

[NoNameBAM]

Maybe Dess being trapped in "the dark" is the reason for why Kris is opening a fountain at the end of Chapter 2.

[sf]

I'm thinking that Dess's dissapearance could be related with whatever is behind the door at the south of the town, in chapter 2 it's implied that something happened and that Kris was involved, you could probably connect a few dots and maybe it's possible that this is where Dess's dissapearance happened.

[dwerical]

Dess has been a huge mystery so it's really difficult to be able to come to a stable theory. If anything it's incredible how you were able to put together one yourself

[seraphic_sephirah]

I feel like we will met Dess in one of the dark worlds, but after searing the fountain she would come back as an object just like darkners manifest like objects in the light world.
I want to speculate about Dess’ death.
If I recall it correctly, In UT after monster died family of the monster puts their dust on something that was important to them during their life. To explore your theory further, it’s a possibility that Kris witnessed Dess’ death and sprayed her dust on something, might as well be the guitar from spamton sweepstakes. That guitar was never seen in game before, so it’s either in Noelle’s home or somewhere where Kris hid it, after spraying Dess’ dust on it.

[Somethingsalwayshappen]

Dess might be a secret boss in a later chapter. Think about it, it would be such a great plotline and an amazing fight also it would create a pattern for all the secret bosses(like spamton and jevil for realizing that they aren't free.)

[R--RT]

Something just popped in my mind. So, December, why would that be shortened to "Dess", there's no "S"in "December". In Japanese (デス)Desu, "which is pronounced Dess" is a word for Death. We all know Toby is very familiar with Japanese culture, and loves word puns. So, perhaps Dess really is meant to be dead. Or maybe this name pun is a red herring.

[andrewesch]

I like to think that Dess' disappearance is related to whatever incident occurred that caused Asgore to resign from the police force as police chief.

[reolives]

I just really really really want Noelle's mother to be Gyftrot.

[indigo_]

I do think a strong connection between Kris and Dess from their childhoods is entirely possible!
I saw something once about how it’s possible Noelle took on a similar personality to Asriel (at least, the personality we see in Undertale) and in turn, Kris and Dess are similar in that sense. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out Kris perhaps felt closer to Dess then to Asriel…

Or I’m wrong and Kris could simply feel a strong dislike towards Dess or something else. Either way, it would be interesting to learn about their relationship pre- Dess’s disappearance

[ElysiaEsper]

my theory has always been this: Dess, Asriel, Noelle, & Kris went to explore the far side of town with the bunker. there was always lots of rumors & urban legends or whatever, & it looks like an OLD bunker, so ppl have been staying away from it. but going in? it's like a challenge. so they wanted to go & do it but Asriel & Noelle backed out– Noelle was scared & Asriel took her away. Kris & Dess continue on. they go into the bunker. Kris sees something they cannot describe & they go thru something they cannot tell anyone. Dess is lost & somehow trapped inside the code of their reality & kinda drifting in the Dark World, in a way. Kris can't tell anyone about what they know. Asgore is tasked to find Dess, but he fails to find her & the Mayor kicks him off the force. Toriel & Asgore were already tense but losing his job as chief breaks the back & they divorce. this must've happened at least 5+ years ago or so– ppl don't talk about it anymore, Kris & Noelle have had some time to drift apart, Asriel finishes up school & goes to college. a decent amount of time in between. idk if Dess is the Knight or anything like that, but i believe the prsn who's speaking to us thru the code is Dess.

[birdflox]

If Dess really got lost in a dark world, then I feel like it's pretty likely she would realistically be dead by now. We know that Lightners actually need food to survive, and we know from Susie that food in the dark world doesn't seem to matter, implying it's either imaginary or at least not filling in the real world. So that means it's possible that getting stuck inside a dark world would end with you just straight up starving to death. I can't imagine how Dess would survive in an environment like that, especially without any other party members.

[cwolf]

I've waiting for someone to point out the part about the conversation between Kris and the voice for a while. It just seemed odd that spamton eyes went dark or offline during the dialogue. Then he snapped back as if not knowing where the voice came from but it was talking to you. I watched that group chat too very good BTW! Dorked had a good point with Kris having issue with dess disappearance and the piano is his way of coping.

Furthermore after mentioning the voice possibly being connected to dess speaking to Kris inside a void, if that's her, then does this mean the roaring knight if likely not Dess?

[張謙-nl]

It's really weird to see Kris stop playing piano when Noelle is watching since according to the person in Hospital, Kris doesn't seem to be annoyed by others watching.
BTW, the unused lines in the code, rather than Gaster's entry 17, it reminds me more about the fake Toriels's quotes in the echo flowers, not sure whether these are related

[davidnl]

Ok, so ever since I played Chapter 2 I haven’t stopped thinking that Asriel might be the Knight. We know that Asriel will come back “next week”, and there will be seven chapters, so we can expect Asriel to appear and play a major role; we also have Ralsei’s and Asriel’s strange connection. So, what if Asriel is creating Dark Worlds in order to find Dess? We know that the four of them used to hang out in the past, we know that at one time Kris had an experience with the bunker, and there’s the fact that the first save point has Kris’s name and that Noelle mentions how familiar the Dark World feels, so my theory is that the bunker is the Dark World where they used to hang out until Dess went missing

[DarkLordGanondorf]

I actually assumed that Kris was involved in Dess's disappearance from the start, mostly because it hits all the narrative beats. They hung out with Dress and Noelle constantly, but not anymore? Why? Perhaps something really bad happened? They all hung out near the creepy bunker which seemingly doesn't open? But then some other kids remark that Kris seems to think the bunker is dangerous or something?
Noelle doesn't seem to remember anything, however. Maybe she is repressing memories? Queen said she had already awakened too much in the Snowgrave Route. And the bit where Noelle says " So much snow, I couldn't see anything." always seemed a bit disconnected from the rest of the dialogue in that scene to me.
All the ingredients are there is what I'm saying.

[Idfknymore]

Not sure if anyone has commented this yet but some unused chapter 2 filles, there a lines of dialogue saying :

"No one can hear me, can they...? I guess not. To be honest, I'm not even sure if I can hear myself. It's so quiet here... ...and yet, sometimes, I swear I hear something... Something like... Scratching?"