my initial thought was that it actually didn’t use that many leitmotifs: just spamton’s two motifs, the world revolving + power of neo, and dummy!. but that’s actually more leitmotifs (5) than hopes and dreams (4: once upon a time A and C, your best friend, and snowdin town), chaos king (3: card castle, lancer, legend), and attack of the killer queen (3 or 4: queen, maybe another queen motif somewhere?, berdly’s 2 motifs), assuming i have everything correct! (i’m counting each distinct section of a source song as a unique leitmotif.)

watched the linked video for the first time, though i’m sure i’ve seen it plenty of times in my recommendations. i didn’t consider melody A’’ to be a variation of melody A, but i suppose it kinda makes sense. i assume this was one of the more influential analyses of big shot’s leitmotifs?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baphomet

Baphomet is a deity allegedly worshipped by the Knights Templar that subsequently became incorporated into various occult and Western esoteric traditions. The name Baphomet appeared in trial transcripts for the Inquisition of the Knights Templar starting in 1307. It first came into popular English usage in the 19th century during debate and speculation on the reasons for the suppression of the Templar order. Baphomet is a symbol of balance in various occult and mystical traditions, the origin of which some occultists have attempted to link with the Gnostics and Templars, although occasionally purported to be a deity or a demon. Since 1856 the name Baphomet has been associated with the “Sabbatic Goat” image drawn by Éliphas Lévi, composed of binary elements representing the “symbolization of the equilibrium of opposites”: half-human and half-animal, male and female, good and evil, etc. Lévi’s intention was to symbolize his concept of balance, with Baphomet representing the goal of perfect social order.

…huh

ralsei is the one trying to maintain the balance of light and dark, i suppose

*google translates the title*

…yeah

ah, that little detail! what’s even more intriguing is that it’s only the first two bars of the theme

it’s not an easy question for me!

i’ll highlight two from undertale: first, it’s pretty cool how waterfall is kind of a “leitmotif bridge” between ruins and another medium / core. too bad snowy isn’t connected in the same way

more notably: the way don’t give up uses the variation of the ruins leitmotif from an ending / undyne’s neutral death theme is pretty amazing. with pretty much the exact same melody and rhythm, it manages to go from depressing and emotional to inspiring… and emotional.

for deltarune, i’ll highlight two from chapter 1 and one from chapter 2. i like how field of hopes and dreams, as the very first “proper” area theme, heavily emphasizes the don’t forget leitmotif, using it in a cheerful, upbeat way.

as for one of the very last songs in chapter one, the way chaos king just blasts you with the legend section C in a refreshing burst of determination and hope that contrasts nicely with the rest of the theme… yeah even in chapter 1, despite lacking the various improvements of chapter 2, toby fox absolutely nailed it with everything music-wise.

and as for chapter 2, the way berdly’s theme is incorporated into attack of the killer queen is both surprisingly subtle (especially since it actually takes up more of the song than queen’s own leitmotif(!)) and, just, pleasant to listen to. in particular, i love the way they changed around the rhythm for section B of berdly’s theme.

man, that transition segment in finale where asriel’s leitmotif plays…

i would certainly like to participate in that kind of stuff (assuming i have something valuable to contribute in a given discussion)! maybe you could trial it for a few days and see how things go?

hello! not planning to visit here particularly often (i’m much more active on !kirby@lemmy.world), but i figure i’ll check back here from time to time. here and also !deltarune@lemmy.fmhy.ml.

i would like to participate in discussion questions whenever i can, though, so: narrator chara is a classic! has some interesting evidence, but more importantly i think it a. makes chara’s character more interesting and b. makes the narration another “meta-infused” element of the game, in line with other stuff such as the save system.

i’m sure there are various other theories that i’m a big fan of, but this is the only one that comes to mind right now so yeah