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Deltarune is a game about many things. What is it really about, at its core? There are many possible answers to this: escapism; our relationship to art/fiction/objects; friendship; the prophecy. But none of them explain why the main theme of the game — or at least the song that plays over the credits of Chapter 1 — is called Don't Forget. Its melody shows up in many other tracks in the soundtrack, so it must be important. But what do its lyrics mean? They sound uplifting, but after three more chapters and almost eight more years, some of its hidden messages have come to light.
After completing Chapter 1, we hear these words, sung by Laura Shigihara of Plants vs. Zombies soundtrack fame:
When the light is running low
And the shadows start to grow
And the places that you know
Seem like fantasy
There's a light inside your soul
That's still shining in the cold
With the truth
The promise in our hearts
Don't forget
I'm with you in the dark
Let's work our way through these lyrics, starting from the beginning.
When the light is running low
I could say something here about "running", or about treating light like it's a resource or a HP bar, but I'd be missing the forest for the trees here. This is just our introduction to Deltarune being about darkness.
And the shadows start to grow
Do shadows... usually do that? They lengthen when the sun goes down, sure, but are they typically described as growing? I don't think so. (This isn't the only time that shadows are described as behaving unusually in Deltarune — the descriptions of the Shadow Crystals and the Shadow Mantle both mention shadows acting like water.) This does, however, match the appearance of the supply closet door in Chapter 1 that seems to leak shadow, as well as the "shadows cutting deeper" line from Gaster in Undertale, who has since been theorized to have been describing a Dark World. To the untrained eye, though, the shadows growing just looks like a metaphor for hardship. Which I'll discuss next.
And the places that you know
Seem like fantasy
This sounds like a description of difficulties or changes in life, when even familiar places don't feel the same. On a closer inspection, though, why "fantasy"? This line doesn't rhyme with anything, so any dactylic plural or mass noun could slot in there. I can think of at least two reasons. One, that the Dark Worlds are implied to be based on imagination. As Ralsei explains at the beginning of Chapter 3, they are "the places that you know" distorted by darkness to, well, "seem like fantasy". Another reason is that Deltarune itself takes cues from the fantasy genre, at least at first — Chapter 1 is pretending to be a straightforward, vaguely medieval fantasy story; there are magic users; it shares similarities with the in-universe, mage-and-potion-having RPG series Dragon Blazers; whatever else.
There's a light inside your soul
That's still shining in the cold
Some of you may be thinking of that one scene in Chapter 4 where Kris's soul very literally lights the way. But it has shone (or should that be "shined"? Toby Fox is frustratingly inconsistent with this) even in Chapter 1: in the fight against King, it can "shine its power on" Susie and Ralsei to give them new abilities in the fight. It's not the only thing shining, though; a lot of save points in Chapter 1 describe various powers shining within you. The heroes in Ralsei's version of the prophecy are "shining with hope". And so on and so forth. The only question I have to ask is... why the cold? I don't have an answer this time. All I can come up with is that it has something to do with Noelle, who uses ice magic in the Dark World... We're getting to the part in the lyrics that can no longer be interpreted with only four chapters' worth of information.
With the truth
The promise in our hearts
For a second I thought that truth hasn't been a major theme in the game yet, but being true to oneself always has. Susie and Ralsei, who were both pretty flat characters at first, have been showing more and more depth — she's more than the tough bully she always had to be, and he's more than the cute helpful healer. But I'm not sure how the light in your soul has anything to do with that so far. The "promise in our hearts", however, which sounds generically inspirational, takes on a darker meaning when you piece together the crumbs Chapter 4 gives us about Kris having a promise with someone, probably Carol, and probably about their soul.
Don't forget
I'm with you in the dark
While the phrase "don't forget" appears several times in Deltarune, here the thing we must not forget is apparently that someone is with us in the dark. Who's this "I"? For that matter, who is "you"? Is this a message of support from a friend, or a threat from... a FRIEND? Perhaps it's both.
This concludes my analysis of Don't Forget. This was written on 9/27/2025, at night and without a ton of revision, so it's not my best work. This page was last edited: