Thematically, Gaster is a
hidden character. He is in the background of the story even when it is alluded to that he is the one speaking to us during the end of Chapter 4, during the Knight Fight, and in the beginning of the Survey_Program. Whereas the Beast is very forward and front and center, Enoch is not. He is referrenced twice, and is unheard of again. You have to actually read the Book of Enoch, which has dubious connections to Scripture (but has passages which ARE Scripture) to get a glimpse into him.
Besides the two figures being incredibly similar in comparison, both being an easter egg hunt in their own right which you have to connect the dots to figure out, if Gaster was the beast it wouldn't make sense within the lens of the prophecy as we understand it. Three Heroes gather together to banish the
Angel's Heaven. This same Angel which in the Undertale version told by Gerson would free everyone from the Underground?
We could make the claim that this Angel is akin to Satan. To Quote II Corinthians 11:14;
14 Et non mirum: ipse enim Satanas transfigurat se in angelum lucis.
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14 And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
However, this still wouldn't make sense for two reasons. One, we are the Angel. Yes we can be either good or bad, but metaphorically, banishing an Angel has the implication of defying Heaven. This would be Satanic and akin to the Beast. Two, Gaster doesn't
want the prophesy to succeed in a way. He is extremely curious to see if we can break it successfully. He encourages us to defeat the Knight, which is seemingly impossible. Breaking the game is his whole schtick, and we even see an old console screen at the end of the Chapter 5 Weird Route. It's clear we are progressing towards Gaster in some way!
To make some additional notes, Gaster is as much associated with the number 7 as he is 6 (insert 6-7 joke here). Seven being the antithetical number to 6 in Biblical numerology. Seven Chapters, Seven Flowers, Seven Souls, Going through a full week in Seven Days, etc. Granted the Beast has seven heads, but this is still an open question. Enoch, having been taken by God, and living a fitting number of years (365), would be associated with the number seven too. Notably, the Book of Enoch is the only Apocraphyal book to name the Seven Archangels (with the Book of Tobit only naming St. Raphael the Archangel, one of the Seven to stand before the throne of God).
It would be amiss if I didn't mention the opposite water connotations within Deltarune as well. Notably,
Raise Up Your Bat references the Biblical Ark in the lyrics;
Come follow me into the dark
With your heart as the ark
Which shall shine you the way
Because I'm with you in the dark
With your heart as my mark
Which shall guide you the way,
through the waves
Enoch, as a figure, lived before the Deluge occured, but witnessed the horrors of the Nephilim on Earth (we could say FRIEND, the horrors within the Dark Worlds could compare). The flood wiped out this evil. Since our heart is the literal ark which carries Noelle across the waves of the lake, I find it interesting that the mystery man who speaks in hands (a forgotten Computer language that isn't used anymore, much like how Enoch spoke the proto-language of Adam
before the Tower of Babel) is the one who is intimately linked to Dess and the mystery of Deltarune. As an additional note, Wing Dings truly could be looked at as a proto-language of sorts since it is so mysterious, old and foundational to internet culture, another running theme of the game. Hell, 2/3rds of language is communicated non-verbally, so speaking in hands is literally a proto-language.
"But what about the Egg man? He's clearly a good guy and Gaster considers him a threat since he says you have issues if you find the eggs." Well that's curious as now that we know that FRIEND is hunting people who collects "protein" aka EGGS, it would be an issue if you found an egg since the most demonic character in the game is after you now. If Gaster is an Enochian character, and is a good guy, yes he would consider it an issue if an agent of hell was after you. We have no way of saying for certain if FRIEND is for or against Gaster, but FRIEND is certainly a villian. One might even liken him to the Beast, also because there are multiple FRIENDS.
"But if Gaster is a good guy and is supposed to be an allegory of Enoch, how can he be linked to the number of the Beast? Doesn't that put a major hole in this theory?" Not necessarily. You see, dear reader, there is a noted passage also in Revelation (Revelation 11) about the Two Witnesses. It is widely speculated that these two witnesses are Enoch and Elijah who will return from Heaven to speak of the end of the world. At this time, there are only two sprites of what we know for certain to be two different characters speaking in Wing Dings.
The sprite (for many reasons, I'll just
relink this video here) is almost certainly of Grampa Semi, another character which like W.D. Gaster is a skeleton who speaks in a different font. The font being spoken of by this sprite is also speaking in
Uppercase Wing Dings, as opposed to Gaster's lower case. I would wager as well that Grandpa Semi, being literally the forgotten man of Undertale, is the Man Behind the Tree. These two are the two hidden witnesses who want to change the prophesy and undo the evil in the world.
To link to Symbol of the Chud's correct theory that Susie is actually evil and warping the timeline/prophesy somehow, I find it curious that she is a literal DRAGON - as in if we are to say Gaster's Mark of the Beast number has signifigance symbolically, then Susie being a literal DRAGON has to convey something as well, no? I do not think that she's allegorically Satan in the story, as she is (as I said before) more like a Porky to Kris' Ness. However, I do fully subscribe to the theory that we need to defeat Susie to gain the good ending.
If one subscribes to this interpretation of Gaster, the story is as follows: Gaster, being the Royal Scientist, was assumed into his creation. This creation speculated being the CORE, but is more likely the deepest dark beyond Undertale and Deltarune. He (along with Grandpa Semi) is trying to assist us, the Angel, to subvert the prophesy and bring about the good ending of the game. That we need to undo the influence of the Dragon and bring about the correct ending of the game, be it through the Weird Route of the Normal Route with extra steps.
