Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-32182236-20190721003717/@comment-26006155-20200113083850

And my point is that it's best to try to understand the material before declaring things to be canon or not.

Even if Hard Mode is a play the characters are putting on for us, that doesn't mean it's devoid of useful information. Steven Universe put on a play about when Mayor Dewedy's ancestor came to found Beach City. The idea that he had gem-like powers sounded funny at first, and a tall tale. But it was very clear that the Crystal Gems warned Dewey's ancestor of just how dangerous the area was.. and he still settled there even knowing this. Exposition can happen in many forms, perhaps Hard Mode is a play about the earlier timeline?

You say we should use the rules of science in our real world to solve problems in the worlds of FNAF and Undertale. But what if the rules of science are different in these worlds? Both properties involve science so advanced that it appears to be magic. You've assumed you know the rules of the game, but do you really? Assumptions are dangerous in a mystery.

Even MatPat now thinks that both Charlie and Michael are androids in his latest video. Something I've been arguing for in the four years you've mentioned. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtIVjzOHG0Y ) Are you still so sure that we can throw out all the evidence in Sister Location that shows that Michael isn't as normal as he seems?

About "The Immortal and the Restless": The baby vampire has Michael Afton's own color scheme of blue and purple, something we see in the child pictures as early as FNAF 2, and the Sister Location Custom Night cutscenes. While his father Vlad is solid purple, like William. The story involves a mansion like the FNAF 4 house, and a fire, which is also referenced many times from FNAF 3 onwards. So many aspects of the story of The Immortal and the Restless touch on the real life and times of the Afton Family that it's very improbable that the opera ISN'T about Michael. Again, it's about discovering how the artist shares information with the audience, they can do whatever they like.

So I do think that Undertale's Hard Mode does have canon evidence in it. Even if that evidence is presented second-hand in the form of a play. I think there's a high possiblity that we might learn more about the original Alpha timeline by studying Hard Mode. The reason Sans knows about when Frisk is going to arrive, is that he made that trip himself at the same point in the other timeline. A timeline we're still trying to map.

I've accepted your idea that DeltaRune and it's dark world is a world after Gaster's Darkest Experiment. And present a hybrid theory between yours and mine: That Gaster's experiment turned the residents of the Underground into twisted Toys after removing their souls in his attempt to break the Barrier with harvested monster soul power. Perhaps the Darkest Experiment did succeed after all, before Sans went to the past to try and make a better reality for everyone. (Or Gaster's ghost was able to return and finish things after Sans and Papyrus left, gaining Godlike power by absorbing all the souls himself.)

Undertale's Hard Mode can be like the FNAF novels and games: Two related realities close enough to learn from each other, but also telling a different story. It might not be literally the whole truth, but casting the blanket ban of "Non Canon" on Hard Mode isn't accurate either.