I Made A Reddit Post Detailing Some Of My Thoughts Surrounding Rouxls Kaard And One Specific Other Character

i made a Reddit post detailing some of my thoughts surrounding Rouxls Kaard and one specific other character… it would be so crazy if you went and checked it out 👉👈

anyone wanna hear my extensive and large amounts of rouxls kaard theories

and here's most everything i drew after ch 2's release.

fun fact! did you know that you can gain extra ‘forbidden time’ by staying up late in the night? but Watch Out

Rouxls is Hiding Something Big: A Deltarune Theory

FORENOTE- For some needed context, it may help reading my previous Deltarune theory here for important details that I will cover in this post. (My previous theory provides notable evidence on why Gaster is indeed the “Knight” figure talked about by multiple characters in Deltarune.)

Now, this is going to sound crazy. But after much time of poring over and analyzing Deltarune, I have come to a conclusion. One that I’ve been convinced of for awhile now. Something that’s been lying right under all of our noses without many of us even realizing it. We have all been bamboozled. Hoodwinked. Tricked. Why, you may ask?

Because the comically stupid and inept Duke of Puzzles is actually… not an idiot. No, he’s the complete opposite. He is a downright mastermind.

As collective players, we are all falling into the same trap once again. Putting faith into a character’s preconceived personality !

When their true personality turns out the complete opposite of what we expected…

It is here, my evidence for this claim begins—and we delve into the true identity of Rouxls Kaard. Buckle up everyone, cause this one’s gonna be a fun ride. 👀

So, to spill the beans up front, and get it over with. I believe Rouxls Kaards identity… is none other than W.D. Gaster in disguise.

Now. I didn’t immediately become invested in this theory—I was skeptical at first like everyone else. But, once I began examining Deltarune and all of its characters a bit closer…things weren’t exactly adding up about the Duke of Puzzles.

Point #1: Anagrams

I initially began to become suspicious of Rouxls Kaard because of his odd name. Sure, it is a play on the words of the term, “Rules card”. But it is spelt in such a peculiar way. If it were just simply a play on words, I think that there would be a much better way of going about spelling it rather than just jumbling a bunch of random letters together. There is a very intriguing reddit post found here that goes more into depth about his name that ties well into my theory. The thing that stood out to me in particular, is that Rouxls’s name is actually also an anagram for “A Dark Soul RX”, (with the left over RX typically being used in terms relating to doctors/medicine.) Not only is Gaster a Doctor, but he’s also always associated with darkness and the research of souls. Toby loves his anagrams—so I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if this was intentional. But it doesn’t end there.

I’ve noticed that Toby Fox has a tendency to tease certain things about his games through merch. And wouldn’t you know it—he has in fact, a particular item on fangamer of a “dark heart.” One which description describes the Angel’s Prophecy. Hm…

But let’s back on track onto my second observation, shall we?

Point #2: The Physical Resemblance to Gaster

Now, there seems to be some interesting foreshadowing related to inverted colors in Deltarune. Before Ralsei takes his hat off, he appears black. But once he takes his hat off, voila, his colors are inverted, and he is revealed to actually be a white goat highly resembling Asriel.

In addition, the entire Dark World is literally just. An inverted version of a normal world.

The Dark World could have hypothetically been the created world/experiment that Gaster had fallen into in the first place. After all, his experiment had to do with “darkness”, and “negative” photons–AKA the Dark Fountains, and the negatively/inverted landscapes of the Dark World.

And how does Rouxls Kaard appear inverted anyways? Well, he looks like THIS.

He even has the strange dangling lip thing—which another character said to directly resemble Gaster, Seam, has as well:

In addition, if you look at Rouxls’ text-box profile very closely, his eye colors are actually mismatched which is a rather interesting detail!

Point # 3: His Accent is Extremely put on.

I think anybody that has read any sort of Shakespearean/Old English writing, can instantly realize that Rouxls is as bad as imitating an Old English accent as a high-schooler reading Hamlet for the first time. Rouxls absolutely butchers it. He practically adds eth, and est at the end of any word he chooses, and calls the job done. What is even more interesting though, is when he gets nervous or panicked, he drops the act all together and talks normally.

Point #4: He is Pretending to be Dumb; His Puzzles are Actually Impressive!

I found it intriguing how there are countless puzzle traps in all the forest areas and in the Card Castle prison that were actually very well done. You have to flip the spades, diamonds, hearts, etc to unlock doors, and open secret chests. They require a decent amount of thinking skills, and are actually competent. But who made them?? Oddly enough if you observe one of them in the forest areas, it appears that Rouxls Kaard vandalized one of the puzzles to make it harder for the player to beat it—which further implies that he actually indeed made those puzzles himself. This shows that Rouxls is much more competent than only being able to make a single box shove puzzle that is comically easy. Where else do we see a place full of plenty of rather well made puzzles + traps seen? All throughout the Core in Undertale—a place which Gaster himself created!

Point #5: Rouxls IS Aware the World is a Game–AKA DON’T FORGET TO READ NPC DIALOGUE FOLKS!

I think it is well aware by now that Rouxls likely wants us as the players to underestimate him–and deem him a fool so we wouldn’t bat an eye at what he’s actually up to. But the most biggest give away to this is something that I have surprisingly seen no one mention at all. And oh boy, it is the most damning evidence that Rouxls is no idiot to be trifled with.

To the left of Seam’s shop, there can be found a little group of former puzzle-makers that used to live at Card Castle, until they were fired and replaced with Rouxls Kaard. They are now all out of a job, and are just barely scraping by since the Spade King didn’t give them any severance pay. However, Rouxls Kaard offered them a way to get money–by selling the tutorials he made.

These tutorials go over TP, stats, information about Susie, Ralsei,  and Kris. Rouxls Kaard has never once met any of the players yet–and he knows everything about them. He knows about stats. He knows the world is a game.

HOW??

In addition, when you talk to Rouxls in his shop, he calls you three the Heroes of Legend. He is well aware of the Angel’s Prophecy. He knows.

Whenever any character in the world of Undertale & Deltarune knows that the world is a game, it is an instant red-flag. It goes to show that they know much more than they let on. Flowey and Sans are big examples of this in Undertale. Pure hearted, dorky idiots that we trust earlier in the game–but wind up seeing the real side of them later on.

…So why should we treat Rouxls any differently?

Point #6: The “Control Crown”

Something that I immediately thought was kind of weird, was the fact that Rouxls Kaard was able to control the K. Round with a “Control Crown” device. If he is so stupid, how was he able to create a full on mechanical device that can brainwash a life-form into being violent/cause it to triple in size?! That is genius material right there!

But things start to take on a much darker side when you begin to look at the subtext of this realization, which I will get to in a moment…

First of all, Seam claimed these exact words.

The remaining king was the Spade King– as the King of Hearts, Diamonds, and Clubs are seen to be locked up in the Dungeon. Therefore, the Spade King put the Knight, and his strange son into power. IF it were the Spade King in power, the dialogue box WOULD have said “himself”. Therefore, the Knight, and his strange son were put in place to control the kingdom. And who are they?

Gaster/Rouxls Kaard, and Lancer.

Evidence to back this up:

Lancer calls Rouxls his “Lesser Dad”. And Rouxls calls Lancer, his Strange little darling/son.

The Spade King is not in charge. During his boss-fight, he states that he obeys the word of the Knight.

If you observe more of Lancer’s dialogue in the scene right before the gang enters Card Castle, he states that his dad, (Spade King), recently forced his troops to listen to Lancer instead. Therefore, Lancer is by all respects actually second in command to the Knight.

One of Rouxls main interests is...Lawmaking. Even though he is just supposedly an innocent Duke of Puzzles.

Another one of Rouxls main interests is…Cages, and long strolls in the dungeon… 

There are innocent puzzle-makers locked up in the Prison who are terrified–they were arrested for the simple act of making a puzzle without a license. HM, I wonder who could have possibly locked them up? *Wink wink nudge nudge*

And what ties this all together, is perhaps the most obscure, tiniest detail that no one would have likely observed on a first play-through. If you go to the first floor of Card Castle and click the description tablet next to the elevator to the Prison, it claims that the Prison used to just be a Basement Which Just Happened to Have a Lot of Cages. This is backed up by the caged animals in the basement, who say that they miss the “good old days” when they used to be the only ones there in cages, and not a bunch of people behind bars.

In summary, Rouxls is locking up a bunch of innocent people, and playing nice to our faces. He IS the knight. And he is not to be underestimated.

Point #7: Rouxls’ Plan is Already Set in Place

The part where this theory gets a little dark, ties back to my mentioning of the control crown earlier.

If you observe the throne room, it looks like it was recently torn apart in a sort of…conflict.

Why was the Spade King the only king left un-caged to begin with? Why wasn’t he locked up too?

Well…Rouxls Kaard needed someone to put him in charge. But not only that—he needed a scapegoat. Someone to blame. Someone to be “The Bad Guy” for the Heroes to fight.

The Spade King…is actually innocent. He is obeying the Knight, because he is being controlled by a Control Crown. The throne room is in ruins because the Spade King likely fought against this at first, but Rouxls won and successfully put the Spade King under his command. I thought it was strange how the King was so…violent. So irredeemably evil, and even murderous toward his own son Lancer. Yes, it could be argued that this is indeed his true personality, that he is a complete, abusive jerk. But, the whole ending battle of Deltarune chapter 1 feels so…set up in a way? It feels so starkly good vs evil, black and white. Almost like a play.

And oh boy. I think I was onto something.

If you pay close attention to the fight with the Spade King, there is a brief moment at the beginning where he is completely shrouded in shadow. Except. For. His. Crown. It glows stark white in comparison to himself. Like a Chekov’s Gun if you will.

And even more interesting, in the supposed good/pacifist ending, the Spade King is locked up in Prison, the other three kings are still locked up in cages, everyone else is freed, and Rouxls and Lancer now have full control of the kingdom…

Guys. We just played right into Gaster’s hands.

Point #8: Seam Knows that Rouxls is the Knight…

The final observation that genuinely makes me convinced in this theory, is a small detail I noticed at the end of the Pacifist run of Deltarune. Once you have beaten the game, and all of the prisoners are freed, everyone comes to celebrate at Card Castle for your victory. Everyone, except for Seam. That is because Seam knows what the “Strange Knight” did to Jevil. He knows who the Strange Knight is. And he knows what the Knight’s true intentions are.

Point #9: Extra Tidbits I noticed:

When compared to the other denizens of card castle, Rouxls seems out of place. He is the one vaguely humanoid character among a bunch of card and chess themed Darkners. 

His puzzle is… too easy.

Rouxls is oddly excited about overthrowing the king/taking his place. 

Rouxls is well versed in calligraphy of all things. (Relation to fonts + letters.)

Rouxls “sparkles” have an odd resemblance to the shining save states…?

He makes pop culture references, such as ones seen here and here. Could just be random throwaway jokes, but often times more “aware” characters such as Sans and Papyrus are keen on breaking the fourth wall at times/making references to relate with the audience.

His hair looks strangely out of place. Especially the hairline which is really receded to an unnatural degree on the left side. It’s a wig guys…

He gets a suspiciously new position for no reason at all. In any normal situation, he would be extremely unqualified for it if he were as stupid as he makes himself out to be.

Rouxls is literally wearing armor, akin to a medieval knights.

If you pay close attention, Rouxls has a few very subtle similar speech patterns to Gaster. They both occasionally repeat words twice. They both use the words wonderful and truly a lot, etc.

When Kris and the gang beat the K. Round, Rouxls said it was just to test their abilities.

Rouxls theme has leitmotifs from Gaster’s theme.

End of discussion. Deltarune’s finale is legit going to be Gaster getting his wig snatched.

Did someone say COMPLETE DATA ANALYSIS OF ALL THE DEATHS IN THE LIFE SERIES? No? Well. I did it. Here are some neat graphs for you guys to look at so that you don’t have to deal with the gigantic spreadsheet I did!

Let’s start off with the big bad question: what gets people killed in this game, anyway?

Note that a CAUSE OF DEATH is not the same as a KILL. Cause of death is what pops up in the chat when someone dies (ex. PearlescentMoon was slain by Smallishbeans, BdoubleO100 fell from a high place). The cause of death does not always account for player responsibility (ex. TNT traps). Generally, a player is only considered to be someone’s cause of death if the death occurs through direct PvP combat. HOWEVER, responsibility for an indirect kill such as a trap still goes toward a player’s total kill count—for example, Joel has 14 kills overall, 10 of which are direct enough for him to be considered the actual cause of death. After all, axes don’t kill people without being swung by someone.

A few other whacky things about kill counts:

Self-inflicted deaths do not count toward a player’s kill count (ex. Grian doesn’t get a kill for jumping off Monopoly Mountain at the end of 3rd Life, Scott doesn’t get a kill for blowing himself up at the end of Double Life).

When it comes to Double Life, soulmates are considered to share their three lives. No distinction is made between Soulmate A's life and Soulmate B's life, and each death only counts as one kill (ex. Joel gets one kill for killing Scott with fireworks, even though that also killed Pearl (however, Pearl’s cause of death is still Joel, as her life is considered the same as Scott’s)).

Using the /kill command does not count toward your kill count. Grian.

With that cleared up, let’s look at kill counts.

By the skin of his teeth, Grian leads the pack in total kills. The top three you see on that graph are the only players who have a KDR (kill-to-death ratio) of more than 1—for you folks who are unfamiliar with those, a KDR of more than 1 means you kill other people more often than you die. Less than 1 means you die more often than you kill other people. Here are the highest and lowest KDRs in the series:

“What’s this?” I hear you say. “Jimmy Wet-Paper-Bag-of-a-Man Solidarity DOESN’T have the lowest KDR in the series?”

No. No, he does not, and it’s actually really funny you should ask.

Because of Last Life’s mechanic of life transferring, even players that have been in all three installments of the Life Series don’t have the same death count. Eight players died more than three times in Last Life. Another eight died exactly three times. And one player only died twice.

By virtue of starting on yellow and never receiving any extra lives in Last Life, Jimmy holds the record for fewest deaths in an installment of the Life Series with just two deaths in Last Life. He is the only player to ever die less than three times in a game. This means that although he has just one kill, he has fewer total deaths than BigB (who has died a very standard nine times), the only other player with one kill, so his KDR is higher. Congrats, Jimmy, you’re not last in everything. But you are still the only player without a PvP kill.

Speaking of PvP, it’s time to look at how people do that! Here’s a graph of the top five weapons that tend to land PvP kills the most in the series:

And now here’s weapon preferences by game:

[Double Life not depicted due to lack of PvP deaths—only 4 occurred, using a diamond axe, a diamond sword, fireworks, and an iron axe respectively.]

Despite 19 more deaths occurring in Last Life than 3rd Life, the two actually have the exact same amount of PvP kills (28). It’s interesting to note the strong preference for bows in 3rd Life, which was a much more warlike game and had several fairly formal battles where people fought from a distance. Last Life required an overall sneakier strategy, resulting in a higher use of traps. In combat, non-ranged weapons like swords and axes were generally preferred due to fights often starting in close proximity and without warning, courtesy of the Boogeyman curse. Comparatively, Double Life saw remarkably few PvP kills, likely due to each person being twice as accident-prone by virtue of being linked to another player—in fact, with a total of 12, accidents accounted for three times as many deaths as PvP in Double Life and overall for more than half (57%) of the deaths in the game.

As for individual player stats sheets, here’s an example of one of those:

If you want to see one of those for ALL 17 PLAYERS, you can go to this slideshow! More details about the stats can be found in the presentation notes of each slide. And, if you have a really specific question and want to get into the nitty gritty, feel free to send me an ask! Hope you guys enjoyed the data!