Bunch of questions and thoughts about the Chaos King
Greetings Lightners
There is a lot of debates and theories since chapter one went out, but one particular subject has been left pretty untouched, eclipsed by all the others mysteries (What happened to Kris ? Who's Ralsei ? Link to Undertale ? Jevil, Gaster ????)
I'm talking about the Chaos King. There is actually some things quite strange about him. I won't present you complete theories, just some thoughts about stuff that I consider weird, and what could they be. I've played Undertale a long time ago, and maybe I missed some stuff in Deltarune so don't hesitate to comment about any error in the post, I'll correct it right away.
- The throne room : As a lot of people noticed, this room has been thrashed before we enter in it. At this moment, it was natural to assume that the discussion Lancer was having with his father turned bad, but we see right after this that they only began to talk right when we arrive at the bridge. As far as I know, there isn't any character that tell us what happened there. The most obvious answer would be the King himself made it, but why ?
- Truly evil : Besides Chara and Flowey before he reverts back to Asriel, the Chaos King is the first UT/DR character that doesn't let himself be convinced in any way, not showing regret and changing his mind. It of course goes in the way of what Susie said "Sometimes, there's people you just gotta fight", which I think is a way to tell us that we won't be able to solve every fight by ACTing in the next chapters of DR.
- Major Antagonist ? : Yet, It's quite obvious that the Chaos King is far from being the Supreme Bad Guy of the Game himself, when we consider other potential candidates : The Knight, whatever took out his soul out of Kris, Ralsei if he lied to us, maybe Gaster... The Chaos King really seems to be just a pawn. So, it's quite odd when we consider the previous point.
- His cape : Notice how his cape flies off at the end of the fight ? Why ? The next scene would have been cooler with it. As dumb as it sounds, one of the things I thought, just because the king's last battle line is "MY KNIGHT... I shall not fail you..." was that the cape was the Knight theirselves leaving the King because they were disappointed.
- Rouxls Kaard : What does nominating this guy as the Duke of Puzzles has to do with anything ? I'd like to think of reasons but this seems so random.
- His red attack : You certainly know that one of his attacks is colored in red, when his chain/tail drag your fighting square accross the screen. As I remember, colored attacks, in Undertale, were utilized by special ennemies in Undertale and have often been theorized as a sign that the individual had determination, the red color being the strongest of all. In Undertale, the only monster who possess red attacks is Asgore, and it makes sense since he's supposed to be the strongest of all monsters. Edit: his weapons is red, not his attacks.
- Spades : Speaking of this, spades seem to be quite rare : we only have Lancer and his dad. It makes me thing of the Boss Monsters, being a lot stronger and rare. Maybe the Spades are their equivalents for the Darkners ? Also, there is a Spade similar to Lancer shown in the intro, as an example of Darkner. Just like the intro of Undertale, with the human and the Boss Monster.
- His name : Kinda odd that he wears the name "Chaos King" while having fucking Jevil locked in his own castle. There is chances that he doesn't even know he's there, but still odd. Also, the King seems not so chaotic by himself. Emprisoning people, changing laws and nominations (Rouxls)... If anything, I would say that the Chaos King is actually Lawful/Neutral Evil (Yeah but the thrashed throne room)
So, huh, that's it. If anyone has interesting stuff to point out about the Chaos King, I will add it to this post.
Posted Nov 15, 2018, 7:36 PM UTC · edited
Addressing all the points in order (keep in mind these are mostly either speculation or flat out headcanons so take them with a grain of salt)
It was stated that the Knight overthrew three of the four kings, leaving only the King of Spades in charge (presumably because he swore his loyalty). They specifically used the word 'overthrew', which does not necessarily carry the feeling of 'peacefully asked to step down'. So I always figured there was some sort of battle in the throne room (perhaps before the old King of Spades swore his loyalty his royal guards tried to protect him from the Knight, and failed.)
(This is sort of point 2 and 3 in one) The King of Spades (or The Chaos King, or just King. Doesn't really matter) is definitely portrayed as a sort of brainwashed extremist. The prophecy has stated that the balance of light and dark being shifted to the dark WILL destroy the world in a horrific series of cataclysms. Regardless King either does not care or does not believe the prophecy will come true. Going as far as to attempt forcing his son to adopt those ideologies and (based on hints you get from dialogue) being quite abusive in the process. Even going so far as to threaten to kill him to gain an upper hand. He was also the only king who, rather than defiantly facing the Knight and being imprisoned as a result, surrendered to him and swore his loyalty. This guy has been a bad egg from the start. And while I'm not sure why he's true evil when he's clearly not the main antagonist of the game overall (once its fully released) I'm pretty sure Toby just wanted to make a point he briefly touched upon with Flowey in the true ending of Undertale. Something along the lines of "Sometimes there will be terrible people out there, people you can't convince to stop peacefully." It also helps to flip this whole 'everyone can be spared peacefully' ideology the games push on its head, possibly in preparation for some real shit going down in later chapters.
I'm... not sure about his cape. I think maybe King just got rid of it to deliberately make himself look weaker and more vulnerable to further sell the whole "Ouch oof you got me I give up" schtick.
Rouxls Kaard said it himself "I was nominated the Duke of Puzzles... after everyone else was arrested or imprisoned.". If you wanted to speculate perhaps he was some sort of noble or higher up in the court (given his regal attitude) who was thus already on King's good side. So when no more candidates he liked were available he just tossed the role to him.
Serious speculation (I imagine from a realistic standpoint Toby just wanted to make King's final major attack more dramatic) but given his whole extremist attitude perhaps he was just THAT determined to kill you that it embodied itself in his most exhausting attack.
It seems like all the suites were once on relatively even ground until the Knight took over and put the King of Spades in charge. It's possible various Spade-related subjects were thus given better roles somewhere else while other suites were essentially turned into slaves and slave soldiers.
King's full name is presumably the King of Spades, his various subjects under his rule however call him a 'tyrant' and say that 'there hasn't been this much chaos in the land in a long time'. So it's possible all this chaos and discord in the land is being attributed to him by the general public. Thus his true title "The Chaos King." It's not necessarily that he himself is chaotic, his rule has brought chaos to the land.
Like I said a lot of this is either speculation or even dips into headcanon territory, so take it all with a grain of salt. Just my own thoughts I wanted to share.
The point about the overthrow makes sense. And yeah Rouxls could totally have his role by default, or just being opportunist now that I think about it. Oh, and what you said about chaos made me think about something ; they said that the land is in chaos since the Chaos King began his reign, but we don't get to see real issues (well except them chasing us, and all the people in cells).
Your whole post is very good however there is something that bugs me about the spades. If they were loyals to him, why didn't keep some of them at the castle, or even send them after the Heroes ? It'd a waste to not use them, imo.
Regarding the actual chaos in the land it's possible either we are just seeing a small piece of the larger world or the 'chaos' was just poverty and enslavement being dramatized by bitter citizens.
I don't really have an answer to the second point, perhaps just him, his son, and maybe Rouxls live in the castle alongside a ton of slave guards, so the other subjects are off somewhere else, or for whatever reason Spades are just far rarer, maybe Toby just didn't want people to think all Spade-Darkners are related to Lancer and left them out for that reason. I'm not really sure.
Sidenote, they do mention a 'Queen' maybe once or twice in passing, never specifying a suite. Made all the more interesting by the fact there are no queens in game, its the four kings.