Deltarune Thoughts Post Chapter 5 Part 2: The Pink Friend

Tricky Toby Has Done It Again

So I posted Part 1 of this earlier today, but as one might imagine I'd spent a few days writing it up, editing it to be presentable, double-checking my facts, pulling quotes, that sort of thing.

So when Toby Fox dropped a massive lore bomb on all of us yesterday right as I was wrapping it up I just decided to not address it in that post. Instead I simply deleted the section I did have which largely complained about how Pink/Mad Mew Mew wasn't actually connected to much of anything, especially Friend despite the obvious opportunity. And also complaining about how Friend itself seemed to be going nowhere at all, just showing up as a little jump-not-scare and vanishing without import.

Yeah, that's egg on my face alright.

So. That lore bomb. It boils down to a short monologue from Pink's body in the shop after you've beat them, received Chapter 5's egg, and interacted with the Friend cameo. There's plenty Youtube videos on the process you can watch, so I won't reiterate the exact sequence of steps here. I will, however, quote the exact text you get for doing so:

* (Suddenly, the shopkeeper's body took your hand, and talked in a low voice only you could hear...)

* Kris, is your hand okay? It looks like... you've got a cat bite, mew.

* Cats can be nasty creatures, can't they, mew...?

* ... I once met someone who REALLY liked cats, mew.

* They liked cats so much, they owned a whole hunting pack of them, mew!

* Of course, cats are fickle creatures, but they were very good at finding protein.

* Kris, if you have any protein, you must keep it hidden, and never let anyone see it.

* The cats are not too smart, but once they find a target, they never stop chasing it until they get bored.

* And when they find you, they bite... very, VERY, hard.

* Some people would do anything to get away from them, even change their appearance, or go into hiding...

* Oh, Kris, it's terrible, mew. It's terrible...

* Please be careful, Kris... promise...

And then a couple lines transitioning back to hearing from Pink herself rather than just her body:

* H... huh? Wh... why am I trembling? Was my body saying something...?

* Hey, don't have any conversations without me!! Communication is key, right, body! Body!?

Analysis

There's... a lot there, obviously. And how much of it is meant to be literal versus metaphorical is extremely difficult to work out. So I suppose the most straightforward approach is simply piece by piece:

The person who really liked cats

I have to simply admit I have no idea who this could be. ERAM (AKA the shadow mantle holder, John Mantle, Sword Route Guy, whatever) gets brought up a bit because they summon IMAGE_FRIEND looking enemies all over the place that try to hunt down the player, but I'm really not convinced "ERAM" is anything more than just the Shadow Mantle as a darkner. Kris probably stole it from Seam either after Chapter 1 or while carrying stuff over from the classroom at the start of Chapter 2, hid it in their house, and was probably as surprised as we were that it became a Darkner.

Simply put I don't think ERAM is an actual player in all this.

But that leaves who, Alphys? She tried to feed cats, but failed. So probably not, I'd think.

The text does literally state it's someone that Mew Mew, the doll darkner, had met. I'm not sure if it's confirmed anywhere that Asgore got the doll from Alphys, but I'd be surprised if that wasn't the case. Not as if he's likely to buy something like that for himself, I suspect.

So Alphys does at least work in one way, it's just in every other way she doesn't.

At this point I don't have any other ideas for who it could be that the Mew Mew doll had "met", either darkner or lightner, that "REALLY liked cats" and "owned a whole hunting pack of them".

Especially if the cats are supposed to some how be IMAGE_FRIENDs. Then I have no idea who could possibly even be in the running besides Gaster.

The hunting pack of cats

A lot of people are interpreting this part to mean that the IMAGE_FRIEND instances are actually all different instances that are connected by a "hive mind", which I don't actually see any support for anywhere in here. So I'm not sure why it's such a suddenly widespread interpretation.

Protein

So obviously the "protein" being referred to is the eggs we've been receiving from the Forgotten Man. Kept hidden, not letting anyone else see it, and so on.

I guess it could also refer to whatever's going to happen to Kris's hand. Maybe IMAGE_FRIEND eats it or something, I don't know. More on that below.

But assuming this refers to the eggs, that would mean...

Changing appearance and going into hiding

...That the person who Mew Mew implies changed their appearance and went into hiding is probably the Forgotten Man. He gives us the eggs as just discussed, but he's also clearly not exactly a well-known figure, to say the least. Certainly whatever identity he at one point had either was taken from him or he gave up willingly.

I'm still on board with the Forgotten Man being another of those "pieces" of Gaster that one Goner from Undertale mentioned, but if both of these are the case one has to ponder why a piece of Gaster would be so scared of IMAGE_FRIEND. Did IMAGE_FRIEND somehow cause Gaster's accident where he "fell into his own creation"? Is IMAGE_FRIEND working for one piece of Gaster and is trying to hunt down the Forgotten Man piece so Gaster can be fully himself again, against the Forgotten Man piece's wishes? I don't think we have literally anything to go on to do more than wildly speculate.

Could also be Spamton, though. Appearance change, associated with armors that protect against cat-element attacks, avoids the basement that we see IMAGE_FRIEND in until we smuggle him past where IMAGE_FRIEND appears... checks a lot of boxes, if nothing else. And of course it could be a completely outside candidate like Dess or Kris or someone, though if so then all this would be a pretty awkwardly communicated red herring.

Kris's Hand

It's really incredible how much foreshadowing we've had that Kris is going to somehow, some way lose a hand.

We get yet more of it here, of course. Their hand supposedly has a cat bite, cats bite "very, VERY, hard", etc.

The main thing of note here about this new foreshadowing is that it does specify losing a hand to it being bitten. Which echos one of the events that can happen in Side B (Weird Route, formerly) in the church. Essentially, if you try and get Kris to tell Susie they'll never play the piano again, Kris absolutely freaks out and bites down on their hand to prevent the words from coming out. Susie remarks on it, more than a little alarmed:

* Hey, Kris! Kris!

* ... what happened? You started saying something...

* ... then you like, bit the hell out of your hand.

* Damn, that's gonna bruise...

I'm... still not entirely sure if that's just them freaking out due to how much more awful we've been to them that route on top of implying they'll not get their agency back, but that would certainly be enough of a justification.

So...

Where does all this get us? Anywhere? I'm not sure it does. Perhaps however Pink decides to settle into our castle town will shed some more light on things, especially if they have any interactions with Seam. That could be interesting.

But for now, it's just more loose ends, sadly.