There's substantial evidence suggesting Ramb is controlling the Shadow Mantle boss fight:
- He claims to stand guard for Tenna but this is never corroborated, and Tenna is always seen on the radio or in his room. Why would he be looking for the lightners when he can clearly see they haven't gotten past the Zapper guard?
- Ramb is generally rather suspicious about his motivations.
- After the mantle holder speaks in the second sword route game, Kris looks to the backstage with the other controllers and ask Ramb about someone else playing. He claims he was standing guard.
- In the Legend of Tenna, all characters are controlled by another player.
- While the regular sword route enemies obviously aren't controlled, the regular sword route enemies do not have dialogue and do not acknowledge Kris and their actions directly.
- Ramb has to "set up" the console for game 3. Why did he never do that before?
- The moment you turn on the console, Ramb disappears. The Rabbick doesn't acknowledge him yet. Where the hell did he go?
- Minimally useful as "proof", but Ramb/Romb is acknowledged by the quizzes, and Romb is the shadow mantle page on deltarune.com
It seems pertinent to at least mention the implications here.
No one will shed a tear for him.
…
OBJECTION!
Why doesn’t Mantie speak in that same British accent?!
Alternatively, and this is just a tiny bit of a stretch...
ERAM is actually E-RAM(b)
as in an electronic ramb?
as in ramb playing?
idk
I don't see why the exact details of a character's speech patterns (especially while they play the role of another character in secret) matter next to the overwhelming circumstantial evidence.
I'm not entirely sure what you're saying? I just said Ramb was the one playing as the mantle.
I'm also of the mind ERAM is a pun on Ramb (why else would you put in the effort to name these things in this way?) and the mantle boss's name is Eram, however the wiki's editors are generally hostile to that "fanon", so I omitted it.
Isn't Ramb almost fully transformed into stone when you access the original game after Round 3? He came from the Cyber World, so he's not compatible with the TV World, makes sense he'd turn into stone. But then how could he play the game if he's turned to stone?
He turns half to stone, asks you to push him, and once you get to the dungeon he disappears. He was evidently lying about not being able to move.
He could still move his fingers for the controller
the dialogue of the rabbick to the right side of the room says that someone came and dragged him out, he didnt leave himself
The Rabbick's dialogue does not change until you beat the Shadow Mantle boss. Ramb leaves the moment you enter the dungeon. These are not related events.
Also, that's a massive assumption about the dialogue. The Rabbick doesn't say anything other than imply A Thing Happened to Ramb.
well i assume once you entered you werent really supposed to leave until you finish the game (though they had to let you leave if John Mantle was too hard for the player to beat)
In what world do you need Ramb to disappear to get out of the room? You know you can walk in and out of that room to your heart's content before the console turns on and Ramb will still be there. In fact, killing yourself on the cactus in the third board's first area will show you Ramb, still standing there. He specifically disappears once you get the sword and enter the manhole. It's asinine to suggest they would dedicate two completely unrelated flags to whether Ramb is there and whether the Rabbick has reacted if they're the same event.
There's definitely a lot more to Ramb than we know as of Chapters 3/4, but a lot of these points feel like stretches to me.
Aside from just saying Ramb was "lying" about not being able to move (or somehow using the controllers when the entire left half of his body was turned to stone), what do you make of the Shadow Mantle holder having knowledge of Kris's involvement with the Weird Route in Chapter 2? We know that Ramb was originally from the library, but he'd presumably been at the Dreemurr house for years at the time of that dark fountain opening. You could propose Kris brought Ramb there, but that would contradict the apparent time that's passed since Kris ever interacted with Ramb (if they ever did talk to him as a Darkner prior to Chapter 3):
"Oi, Kris, luv! It's me, Ramb! You and your brother took me here from the Library!"
"Time flies... Seems like just yesterday you and that girl had everyone here lined up."
(Edited to correct my own misunderstanding — you CAN leave the room during the game)
The Shadow Mantle boss knowing about weird route is the only remaining question with this interpretation and it's a question I'm willing to let stand until we have more chapters. At the moment, I think the direct relationship between Ramb, the previous shadow crystal holders, and the in-universe game describing weird route, in addition to the connection between shadow crystals themselves and weird route, is enough to handwave it until we have more to work with.
Of course "handwaving" isn't exactly what you want to see with a claim on the wiki, which is why I'm not interested in putting "Ramb is the shadow mantle holder" anywhere, I want to see the facts the game presents which imply it accurately conveyed in the proper places with the understanding the evidence is strong.
You say the points are a stretch, but how so? Is it that one is just asserting Ramb is suspicious? I could cite every point in chapter 3 that he acts oddly. You put lying in quotes but do you have any other explanation for him moving 20 seconds after he says "Y'see, I can't really move myself now"?
That's fair — the Weird Route point is really the only piece I just can't see fitting in right now, but I could see this being at least expanded upon in later chapters.
My point wasn't to say Ramb wasn't suspicious throughout the chapter (that's, like, his whole character), but rather that "lying" seems a little presumptuous (not the best word). I have no doubt that he would've been able to move at least somewhat (he can speak, after all), but he would've been severely limited by his half-petrification (like Rouxls in Chapter 2) — all this to say that it feels like a slightly misleading way of making him seem even more deceptive to support the theory. I'm not sure if any of that was coherent, but I'm saying if felt less like he was lying and more like he could genuinely use the help (without being completely disabled). But this is just conjecture, so this explanation really only as reasonable as you want it to be.
The "20 seconds" part seems a little pedantic since it would probably be longer for most players, but you're 100% right about his disappearance being suspicious. Regardless of whether or not he's the holder, he does have some underlying connection to the boss that I'm excited to see expanded upon.