I know the immediate thought that will cross many people's minds upon reading the title will be "Well thats impossible" but I ask you to keep an open mind.

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The closer we get to Chapter 5's release the more certain I am in Noelle being the Knight. Do I have all the answers for how this would work? Absolutely not and I'm not going to pretend I do.

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But I want to lay out what led me to this conclusion and maybe change some minds.

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# Noelle's importance to the narrative.

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I'd like to start off by highlighting that Noelle is very important to the story of Deltarune. While this might seem like a nothing burger statement I find that Noelle out of all the main cast is the most likely to have her importantance downplayed even compared to someone like Dess who hasn't even had a spoken line in game yet.

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Noelle is at the heart of one of the games central conflicts: The Holiday Dremurr fallout post Dess disappearing. Noelle is pretty clearly not over this on any front. She has several mentions of missing Kris and wanting them back her in life (seriously there's a lot, I can't list em all here). Noelle's big sister is the very cause of the rift, any resolution has to involve her little sister who lost her at a young age.

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Noelle is also intertwined with the whole bunker conspiracy no matter who the Knight is. If it's Rudy, Carol or Dess she has to confront the fact her families been lying to her for however long. Even if the Knight wasnt a holiday Noelle needs to confront that Kris has avoided her for years while secretly working with her mother.

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Even the more secretive parts of the game have Noelle's fingerprints all over them. There's an entire extra route thats only possible through her. Girl Next Door contains Gasters theme. Noelle even saw Friend in her games.

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Noelle is vitally important to the plot of Deltarune which got me thinking on if I'd overlooked anything.

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# Minor details.

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The first things that got my mind wandering down this track are some of the more minor details in the dark worlds created by the Knight.

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1st was the electric plugs staring and smiling in Queens basement, a fear that Noelle very specifically had. 2nd was the section where you spell out December similar to the spelling bee Noelle had as child. 3rd was the focus on the ferris wheel in the dark world.

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These all might seem like minor details but I believe they take on greater significance with Chapter 4 in mind. We see when Susie tries to recreate the church Dark World it comes back radically different and that was her attempting to bring back the same place and a specific darkner.

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So we know the fountain makers mindset affects the Dark World, how they look, which darkners manifest even the layout of the world. With this information in mind those minor details seem to point in a clear direction. The first two I think are clear (childhood fear and embarrassing memory) but the third needs a little more elaboration.

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Noelle is more closely tied to Ferris Wheels than any other character in the game, especially in regards to romance. She sees an advert for it and immediately wonders if Susie will ride it with her, its right next to her room, it's made of heart shaped carriages and Noelle + Kris rode one as kids where she dodges the question on how she felt back then.

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Would a dark world made by anyone else make a giant heart covered ferris wheel specifically next to Noelle's room? Would it make the plugs act in a way Noelle specifically feared? Would it remind her of a humiliating time in her life?

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This was when my brain started looking through the game to see if I'm on to something or just losing it.

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# Dark World locations and characters.

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I've always wondered why the Knight opened up the Dark Worlds in the computer lab and abandoned classroom specifically.

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The line about Kris and the girl paying in chapter 3 gives us a clear indicator as to why.

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Now I know some people believe that girl to be Dess but I believe this can't be true for several reasons.

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1. In the Japanese translation the girl is referred to as ojou-chan which to my understanding means a polite younger girl. This would contradict the ribbick text describing Dess as rowdy, messy, dirty and unfocused. Now to be completely transparent I do not speak Japanese so if I'm misunderstanding please correct me.

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2. Noelle and Kris are portrayed as seeing eachother a lot as kids. The Spamton sweepstakes mention explicitly that Kris used to come over and play with Noelle nearly every day. Noelle mentions that it feels like her and Kris know eachother better than anyone. Dess and Kris are said to have interacted and I'm sure they were close but it's not to the same level as Noelle from what the story has shown us so far.

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3. There would have been a couple years age gap at a minimum between Kris and Dess. Playing make believe with inanimate objects like that seems a little immature especially since we've seen Dess room and she seems more concerned with sports and music. Also she would have had Asriel right there as someone her age she could hang out with.

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With Noelle in mind as the fountain maker the locations and characters line up quite cleanly. They're all characters they know and created from their childhood.

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# Things falling into place.

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After this a lot of things that were always a little odd to me slotted into place much better.

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Why does Girl Next Door contain references to Gasters theme? Why did Noelle see image friend as a child? Because Noelle is directly linked to the bunker and all the supernatural Gaster weirdness within.

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Queen talking about how Noelle is actually incredibly strong and could totally be the Knight is the most in your face foreshadowing under this theory.

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Noelle even repeatedly hides her identity in the same chapter by repeatedly putting a mask on.

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Noelle mentioning that the Dark Worlds feel like video games? Of course they do, they're being made by a massive dragon blazers and cat petterz fan.

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Noelle being able to equip the jingle blade, which is described as a knights jousting lance, and the black shard? Well of course she can she's quite literally the Knight.

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# Okay great, but how does any of this actually work?

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Okay, the elephant in the room, it can't really be the Noelle we actually interact with in game.

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I believe the weird route thoroughly debunks the idea that the Knight can be literally the Noelle we talk with. The Knights behaviour doesn't change at all and there's 0 affects from the Thorn Ring. Not to mention Noelle doesn't understand how Dark Worlds work at all in Chapter 2.

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So how do I explain this?

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# Noelle's religious symbolism.

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Noelle throughout Deltarune is associated with both the religion of hometown and Christianity.

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For Chritianity Noelle has Jesus symbolism, her entire family is associated with Christmas, a holiday celebrating the birth of Christ. Then she has a ring of thorns placed on her in the weird route and finally is held up in a crucified pose by queen.

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For the hometown religion Noelle is involved in the church choir, she was the angel in a play as kids, wore angel wings around as a child and is referred to as angel by Spamton and the Addison who sells her the freezering.

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This is all feels a bit strange until you consider that the Knight also has a symbol of Christ, the holes in the hands also known as the stigmata.

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I believe the symbolism is foreshadowing that Noelle is in some sort of Holy Trinity situation. Wether its a part of Noelle that was split off in the shelter, some time loop shenanigans or something I haven't thought of. The Knight is simultaneously both Noelle and not Noelle.

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# In conclusion.

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I genuinely think Noelle lines up the best with all the information we have so far with the Knight from both a logic standpoint and where the narrative is heading.

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It creates a dramatic reveal with a character we know and also brings the broken relationship of Noelle/Kris into the forefront of the narrative in one move. It makes all the previous Dark Worlds line up in terms of why the Knight opened them where they did and what everything within them represents.

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If you made it to the end of this thanks for taking the time to read it, this took way too long but I hope it was entertaining and maybe a bit thought provoking!

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Also please be civil in the comments!

An honest case for Noelle Knight. (Yes I'm serious.)