Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26006155-20190131130037/@comment-26006155-20190322192623

I'm rather proud of these last two arguments I made on a conversation on my wall ( https://undertale.fandom.com/wiki/Thread:160962 ), about the possible nature of Kanashi, the First Monsters With a Human SOUL:

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If Kanashi was the first monster to ever absorb a human soul, that meant that Kanashi didn't even know such a thing was possible, until it happened. So we can rule out premeditation on this.

And it was only when the humans learned that monsters had this ability, that they launched their attack on monsterkind, realizing this danger for the first time.

You assume that Kanashi stole a human soul. But we don't know the circumstances under which Kanashi aquired this soul, so we cannot prove that a theft actually happened.

If human souls always persist after death, any number of things could have killed the original human. An accident. An illness. A war between humans themselves. A natural disaster like getting struck by lightning. All of these things would blast a human's soul out of their body, making it drop as a collectable item.

Have you stopped to consider that Kanashi absorbing a human soul might have been an act of compassion?

Monsters and Humans can definietly become friends, we see that with Asriel and Chara. And if a monster saw that their human best friend had just died, might they try to allow their friend to live on, and remain part of their life, by absorbing their soul and giving that human a second, partial lease on life?

Both Asriel and Chara had some control over their shared body after Asriel absorbed Chara's soul. Chara's body was dead, but her soul lived on, and had a will of its own. The entire reason she wanted Asriels' body was as a tool to get revenge on her home village, thinking she could control him like a tool from the inside.

Having your soul absorbed isn't quite the same thing as death. It can grant an extended life.

Perhaps Kanashi, on seeing his or her fallen human friend dying, rushed over and gave them a huge hug as they passed.. only to then find their souls combinding the moment the human passed, a love miracle of sorts?

The humans might have asked for the soul of Kanashi's friend to be returned to them for proper burial. But that very soul might have wanted to stay with Kanashi and live on, and didn't want to be severed and buried according to human tradition.

So Kanashi refused to return the soul, out of compassion for their friend's wishes.

An act of compassion that the other humans misunderstood as soul-devouring greed.

So the humans attacked, seeing a threat that never actually existed. An act of aggression that turned the once peaceful monsters into enemies in truth.

It's always important to see both sides of a story, and look at it from more than one possible perspective, to see what possibilities might match, or might not.

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Ask yourself this: Which senario better follows the themes of Undertale?

Kanashi being a murderous bastard who preyed on human souls and was justly vanquished at the hands of humans...

... or Kanashi being misunderstood, actually being a compassionate creature, and being a terrible victom of unusual circumstances and fate?

Throw out the entire Probability argument for a moment.

The whole theme of Undertale is about befriending your enemy, and understanding them in way a murder hobo that spends all day slaying them never could.

Kanashi being a war criminal makes no sense in this context. Which matches with the lore we've been presented, because the humans launched the first, sneaky, surprise attack to start the war at a time when they had nothing to fear.

While I was making my Steve Universe theories, the reason I told The Dark Rose Theory as the first of two possiblities, was because it was the theory that came first in the chain.

Rose Quartz has a creepy edge, because she's secretly devouring gems and stealing their powers! And she's made Steven for the sole reason of increasing her own power by devouring him!

Rose being a gem-power vampire seems to make good sense, and is very likely. So, does this fit with the theme of the show so far?

.... HELL no.

I looked at that theory, and realized that it had problems.

If Rose was a gem power vampire, why didn't make sure Bismuth would NEVER talk to anyone again, and just devour her, instead of stashing her in Lion's mane where she could eventually (and did) escape?

Steven Universe is all about understanding eithers, resolving differences, and learning to be friends. Forcing Steven to basically kill him on corrupted mother, while anime hardcore to the extreme, completely flies in the face of the show goals upt this point.

So I started looking for other, better ways the show might resolve.

A genocide war against Homeworld, reselting in the shattering of the other three diamonds too? That would have a negative outcome, rather than a positive one. Whatever force Homeworld was fighting in the background would then have free reign to destroy The Earth, and there's nothing Steven and his small band could do to stop it.

.. but what if we were wrong about Pink Diamond? What if she sacrificed herself and made Steven because it was the only way to save both the Earth, and Homeworld itself?

A very detailed and improbably story.. but once that would be amazing to tell, and inspiring as all heck.

If I were writing the show, I'd definitely prefer ressurrecting Pink Diamond rather than shattering the others. It's just a better story with a better point at the end.

Kanashi might well have been the first Boss Monster, because of their strange link to a human. Do Toriel and Asgore and kid Asriel seem like evil encarnate? No, they don't. They make all the greedy humans look terrible in comparison.

Kanashi (name means "sadness", again) probably wanted the same for their world. But instead, their very existance caused the world they loved to be torn apart.

Kanashi's human link being a gift or an accident makes far more sense with Undertale's goals leading up to this point, than just having Kanashi be some sort of actual monster.

Asriel is a monster with a human soul, after all.

The game isn't about proving that monsters are good or evil. It's about saying that while many humans are evil, they don't have to be. And putting that message in a context where it's hard to avoid.