Non Sum Qualis ERAM theory - Deltarune

Deltarune fans are asking, what’s the deal with this character called ERAM?

The leading theory that it’s mare backwards as in nightmare never seemed that convincing to me and, excuse my obsession with House of Leaves but I can’t help but wonder if it’s a reference to the latin phrase “Non Sum Qualis Eram” meaning “I am not what I used to be”. I see it as an inverted version of “Despite everything, it’s still you”, the most well known quote from Undertale. It could refer to the idea of a letting hardships change them instead of holding on to what makes them human despite everything.

Even if the character’s name isn’t a reference to the whole phrase, it could be reference to the latin word eram meaning “I was”. This wouldn’t be the first time Toby used latin, as Memoryhead’s flavor text was “lorem ipsum docet” which is almost-but-not-quite placeholder text “Lorem ipsum dolor” having changed dolor meaning pain or sorrow to docet meaning “teaches”.

In conclusion, by exporting the sprite data- Nevermind, exporting the sprite data is stupid.

-by analyzing the themes of deltarune we can see that the most likely source for ERAM’s name is the phrase Non Sum Qualis ERAM.