ROSE GRAVE, OR A LIGHTNER DID WEIRD ROUTE


WHY WAS THE WEIRD ROUTE ANIMATION CHANGED?

Before it was changed, CH4's visual for the ring stabbing Noelle was a red rose growing, then wilting.

Weird Route Rose animation

People took this metaphor out of context in.... interesting ways, which led to it being changed to an animation of a cracking screen instead.

Why did no one on the team, Toby or anyone else, anticipate the possible implication of this, despite being extremely 'online' people?

Remember that Chapter 5, the flower chapter, was originally supposed to release with 3 and 4.
This likely means there is some imagery or lore in Chapter 5 that gives context to the red rose animation.


WHAT IS THE THORN RING?

We know the Thorn Ring is literally a thorn in the Light Word, but to be more specific...
I believe the Thorn Ring is a thorn from a red rose, like the scrapped Weird Route animation.

A red rose is the traditional, perhaps even clichéd, flower of love, and ‘the girl will find LOVE’. It also represents romance, and Weird Route makes you ‘something else’ with Noelle.

THE PLANT OF SPIKES, HIDES IN THE FOREST.
IT'S NO ROSE, BUT ITS THORNS HOLD LOVE.

Spamton NEO specifically invokes roses and links them with 'Snowgrave'.

WE'LL TURN THOSE [Schmoes] AND [Daves] INTO [Rosen Graves]
THOSE [Cathode Screens] INTO [Cathode Screams]

(Rosen definition: Made of or consisting of roses; rose-colored, rosy.)

Concept art of Swatch. The final sprite also has the roses on the curtain.
Swatch, the character who created NEO, also is associated with roses.
*We'll be waiting for you with rose-tinted glasses…

To have rose-tinted glasses is to be optimistic. But it can also mean to deny reality, and pretend things are better than they are. It's toxic positivity.
This ties into the game’s theme of escapism in an interesting way, because denying an unpleasant reality is the dark side of escapism.

Noelle is on the border of this, which is maybe what makes her so susceptible to Weird Route. She wishes she had magic just like in her video games so she could cure her father, and she pretends she is coping when she isn’t.


OTHER PLANT MENTIONS

Spamton NEO, is hung up by thick green strings. When defeated, they become more vine like. Interestingly, his arrangement of vines when defeated resembles a ‘staff’ from sheet music.
Spamton hung by vines

‘DIGITAL ROOTS’ plays in the NEO basement, and ‘BIT ROOTS’ plays in the sword route game’s version of the bunker. Neither of these locations are Weird Route exclusive, but at least are adjacent to it.

OFFICIAL FANGAMER MERCH

The CH3 poster features 3 different types of flower.
Fangamer Chapter 3 poster

One is red roses. The other two are a yellow flower and a cyan flower, which might be off-model representations of golden flowers (Flowey) and echo flowers.
Or even the ‘bluest flower’ Ms. Mizzle mentions?

The Bluest Flower, A disciple of my speech
Shy to no camera, And a specimen of Elegance and kindness.

Ms Mizzle

So all three of our important types of flowers are represented.
These are also the type of flowers that get thrown at the stage when you finish the Lightners Late minigame.

Merch isn’t canon, no. But certain parts of the poster, such as Rouxls being so large and holding everyone in his hand, feel like maybe the artist knew a little of where Toby was going with the story, or was given some guidance.

But you can't just go on thematics, are there any actual character associations we can look at?


WHO IS LINKED TO ROSES?

Noelle
Susie eats a Susie-colored rose in front of Noelle in ch4 instead of giving it to her. Compare the Weird Route rose graphic. Despite it being less traditionally romantic, Noelle is better off without roses.

Susie eating a rose instead of giving it to Noelle

Um, is that a... a rose?
This? Oh, yeah, sorry.
...
Oh shoot, did you want some?

Asgore
He has the easiest access to roses, and one of his main traits is sharing flowers with others. He would not deliberately cause suffering, but he could be an unwitting tool for someone else, whether that is a Darkner or a Lightner.
Roses appear in the background of the shop.

The background of Asgore's shop featuring blue and pink roses

Although they are not roses, his arrangement of flowers on the table is lacking a red one.
Asgore's flowers on the table

The wedding photo says Toriel holds 7 flowers, confirming there was never a red flower.

(A photo of your mother and father on their wedding day.)
(She's holding a bouquet of seven flowers.)

To me this suggests the red flower is associated with something other than Asgore's shop.

Ralsei
The ‘Floralsei’ Fangamer shirt features Ralsei with his mouth covered by roses. Toby mentions in a tweet he is 'always getting mixed up with flowers'.

Fangamer Floralsei shirt

Ralsei shirt!!! He's always getting mixed up with flowers, isn't he ... (that hasn't happened)

Toby Fox, Twitter

Berdly
Holds a red rose in his mouth in a joke scene. Doesn’t have a great time in Weird Route.

Alphys
She was gifted 'a bunch of [pink] roses' by Asgore and keeps them on her desk.

The Gamemaker entries for the choicers

One weird thing about the Alphys desk sprite is that it has a link to the choice system. To quickly recap, there are two ways dialogue choices can be set in Deltarune.
White/white options, like most of Undertale’s (uses obj_choicer_old) or white/yellow options (obj_choicer_neo).
The obj_choicer_old’s image in the code is a red heart. Obj_choicer_neo uses Alphys’s desk. The choicer desk image is never drawn in the game itself.
At first I thought the Alphys sprite was chosen because of the Alphys-Mettaton NEO connection, but now I am wondering if the roses on the desk are significant.

Rudy
His bedside table has a dome of roses from Asgore, in CH1.

Rudy's chapter 1 roses

He is given new bouquets each time we see him, which means the still fresh roses are almost definitely in a trash can somewhere- maybe under the sink.

Burgerpants
His 'date' stand has a wilting ten-dollar rose.

Flowey
In a discussion about flowers, we would be remiss to not mention Flowey. Flowey is a yellow flower and not a rose, but his Photoshop form does have thorns.
Photoshop Flowey's thorns

Queen
There is no link in-game, but Toby mentioned in a concept art dump that she is based on Rosemaster from Cucumber Quest. The Rosemaster character is a transgender femme fatale, who uses roses to control and brainwash people.
Rosemaster from Cucumber Quest

Queen has some traits in common with Carol, Toriel, and Mettaton, so this might be a tacit admittance one of them was inspired by Rosemaster as well.

Mettaton
This is where my Mettaton Knight theory shows up, because Mettaton is by far the most consistently linked character to roses.
(Probably a bishounen thing, if you don't agree.)

METTATON THE MOVIE XXVIII... STARRING METTATON!
I'VE HEARD THAT LIKE THE OTHER FILMS...
IT CONSISTS MOSTLY OF A SINGLE FOUR-HOUR SHOT OF ROSE PETALS SHOWERING ON MY RECLINING BODY.

Mettaton, Undertale

Most of his Line stickers have roses as well.
The thing that's curious to me is that most of these mentions are fairly recent. His 2024 Valentine's card has a red rose graphic on it. There is also the skit in the 10th anniversary stream, where he says ‘rose-colored’ twice.

Mettaton mentioning Roses


CACTUS

Flowers are more heavily associated with water (Ms Mizzle is disgusted when you choose cacti over flowers), while cacti can survive with almost no water.

Disgusting.

Choose [Cactuses are Better] over flowers in the fight with Ms Mizzle.

There are already thematic associations of darkness with water (fountains, river imagery), so I think this puts flowers closer to dark, and cacti closer to light. Cacti generally belong in a hotter brighter biome than flowers.

Cacti are used as a symbol for Kris.

A cactus.
There's not much to say about it.

(It's a convincing replica of your favorite cactus.)
(It's a cactus, but not the real thing.)

(It's a Christmas cactus.)
(You remember it's named 'Krismas.')
Umm, this cactus? Berdly calls it "Tsuntsun..."
(It's a cactus that apparently got poorly renamed at some point.)

It 'loves' Kris.

THE CACTUS THAT LIVED UPSTAIRS LOVES YOU.
IT HAS A KEY UNDERNEATH IT, SO PLEASE PUSH IT ASIDE.

(Someone was watching you flirt with the watercooler.)
How nice... her water... was always so nourishing... wasn't it...

But it is Tsundere, like Kris themself.

(It's a cactus. It loves you, but mainly shows a sharp side.)
(If only there was a word for that kind of personality.)
(A word you liked.)

YOU CAN FIND IT IN THE CACTUS FIELD.
GOOD, YOU PUSHED IT ASIDE.
IT'S IMPORTANT TO PUSH YOUR LOVED ONES AWAY, SOMETIMES.

It gives out a Kris exclusive weapon that stays in your pocket in the light world as a Cactus Needle.

(Someone from behind the curtain pushed you away...)
(...? You felt something spiny stuck in your hand.)
(You got the Saber10.)

And it appears to be having an existential crisis...?

(Someone behind the curtain is talking...)
(... can I... look like this... can I... dream like this...)
(... when you moved to listen, suddenly they stopped.)

Flowers and plants are in a vague area between being Lightners and Darkners, as they are inanimate but still living, so that may be why.
There are a few ways this could be going, (future cactus npc?) but for this analysis, I think there's a case for a thematic comparison.

Both a cactus and a rose are green with flowers and have 'thorns'. But a cactus is disliked for being prickly and can survive in difficult places, while a rose is a showy plant with more dramatic associations- war, heraldry, royalty. A red rose is a bold declaration of LOVE, but the cactus is called a ‘tsundere’.

So if the lightner Kris is represented by a cactus, perhaps another character is therefore a rose...?

The Knight is often parallelled with Kris, so could it be the Knight?


THE KNIGHT'S WILL?

So... why is the Thorn Ring so evil? It's just a thing that fell off a plant. The Cactus Needle that falls off the Cactus behind the curtain turns into the Saber10, it has no sinister properties.

But remember, the Fountains are shaped by the Knight's force of personality. What if it was the Knight's will, the will that made the fountain, that transformed the thorn into an item of harm?


LIGHT WORLD

(Flowers in a trashcan. Nothing unusual.)

Flowers are seen a lot in the light world, particularly in the trash.
Spamton lives in the trash, so this adds up. He found it in a dumpster somehow. He has at least 2 ThornRings, although he can only sell you one.

JUST BECAUSE YOU BOUGHT MY [Commemorative Ring]!
AT LEAST BUY [2]!

Spamton’s main trait is that he appropriates things without understanding why they work. He stole the NEO body, he stole Swatch’s ‘look’, he stole Tenna’s suit. So Spamton did not engineer Weird Route.
Someone left the ring for him to find, and he’s just the patsy to convey it to (You).

If the ThornRing is a rose thorn in the light world, that thorn would logically be in the trash of the computer lab.

The regular trashcan became the Darkner called Trashy.
Comparison of Trashy with the regular Trashcan

Oh boy, oh boy! I'm Trashy!
Did you know about adjusting your INVENTORY?
Trashcans like me can HOLD all sorts of things.

(It's a trashcan. You get the feeling it doesn't have any friends.)
(It's hard to explain why you feel this way about a trashcan.)

Examining the Trashy-looking trashcan in the light world.

Spamton's dumpster resembles the recycling bin in shape and colour.
So the light world's thorn would be in the recycling bin.

Comparison of Spamton dumpster with recycling bin.

(It's a recycling bin.)
(Looks like someone accidentally printed off a lot of useless emails.)

Roses do not belong in a recycling bin.
So either the entire possibility of the route hinges on an accident…. or a Lightner is enabling Weird Route.

A desktop computer says this.

(Someone tried to check their email, but the Internet is down.)

So someone couldn't check their email, but someone else printed out a load of useless emails?

Useless emails... Spamton is a useless email. (Spamton lives in the laptop, according to Tenna's backstory, so he can't be a printout)

Someone dropped a rose in the trash, then printed out the emails to cover it up, so no one would see it.

There's actually a cut npc called Printorr who had his own song, sprite and dialogue finalized before being removed from the game. Supposedly, this was because CH2 had too many NPCs. Sure, Toby.

Printor was not used, but his sprite and dialogue were created, as well as a printer-based song that he could play? I just thought… there's too many NPC's already.

Toby Fox, on a page that is mysteriously missing Printor's finished sprite despite it supposedly existing

What Lightner would enable Weird Route?
Asgore is most possible as an unwitting party, but throwing flowers in the trash or even using the wrong trash can isn’t something he would happily do.
Obviously it cannot be Carol. Kris is very unlikely.

I think it is most likely the Knight who did this, as we already know it was in the lab to make the fountain.
So. The Knight is behind Weird Route….? If not them, who else in town would do this?


THE KNIGHT'S POSSIBLE MOVEMENTS
  • Knight, carrying roses, goes into the computer lab.
  • It turns on Queen the laptop, and checks the Spamton email and remains of NEO are in there, so they will manifest in the dark world.
  • It goes to throw the roses in the trash, but there’s little else in the trash, because everyone hates Trashy.
  • It doesn’t want Kris to notice the roses, so it puts the rose in the recycling bin, then prints something out to cover it up. It already had the spam email on screen, so it prints that.
  • It hides in the closet until Noelle and Berdly come into the room, makes the Fountain, then leaves.

CONCLUSION

Alphys and maybe Burgerpants might be in trouble.
Asgore and Rudy are DEFINITELY in trouble.

Either the Knight or some other Lightner in town unlocked Weird Route.

If you see a red flower Darkner, RUN.


My Other Deltarune theories
Mettaton is the Knight
Dess is the Earth
Tenna's getting possessed

Edit

Pub: 22 Feb 2026 10:24 UTC

Edit: 22 Feb 2026 11:24 UTC

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