Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-31536324-20190117214835/@comment-31536324-20190207005417

"'This is named "Justice". So, what do we have? We have surefire accuracy, putting an end to "mayhem", for "justice".''

This line can also be interpreted as putting an end to the ball, whose property is mayhem. Just figured it's important to point this out, since this conclusion is not exactly equivalent to the premise. But in either case, the conclusion is technically the same: stopping some form of chaos, which does agree with the definition of the word "justice", a synonym for "order", which is an antonym to "chaos", "mayhem"."

This is why I say that Justice is your own sense of right and wrong.

"The first is that you're being honest with YOURSELF, and therefore, adhering to your original style.

This can also be interpreted as stubbornness, to a certain degree. Considering the keyword here is "integrity", it implies we're talking about stubbornness in morals, that is, the unwillingness to take compromises (which coincidentally fits Toriel's character, who, as Sans described, has integrity; so maybe I'm on the right track with this one)."

Well her name is colored Blue, in the Switch Version at least.

"So, not exactly creativity as you've then said below, but yes, creativity is also one of the elements of this trait, because of the aforementioned "original style". So, combining these three keywords together, we get: stubbornness in creativity and morality. Kinda sloppy, but that's the best I can do right now."

Would rigidness in style and moral standards sound/work better?

"The name given is "Perservearance". And given what we're told in the description, fighting on through the long journey is a huge motif here. "Taking notes" implies an analytic perspective. Combine the two, and you get trial-and-error.''

Purple is probably the most divergent when it comes to its fanon definitions. Some view it as something very close to determination itself, and some as an innate love for literature. I'd leave it for later to see which definition is more fitting after we sort the rest out."

Same.

"Now, take a look at all the flags. They all share one thing in common. They ALL mention things you do to solve problems.''

Specifically, the problem of getting the ball to the hole. It's important to figure out what kind of other problems this actually translates to. We could be speaking of an enemy, and therefore the situation being a fighting style (a preferred method of resolving conflicts), or of something more psychological, like simply your daily behavior. Or perhaps your behavior under heavy stress."

I always took the traits being applicable to all of the situations you outlined. Hence why it's your trait.

"Care need not be empathetic. It's simply whether or not you think it deserves attention, if it's a matter of significant importance.''

It usually goes hand in hand. I'd for example assume that empathy is not present only when absolutely necessary. Otherwise, I'd keep it. Besides, we didn't just pay attention to the ball, we were being specifically delicate when handling it, to obtain this flag. So rather than attention, I think we are speaking concretely about the kind of care that tries to minimize damages."

Kindness is one I use the dictionary definition for, if fits, and like I've said, it does give leeway to be used for more...violent pass times. Kindness can be twisted in a sadistic sense.

"Given all of this, what COULD solve the problem? Proper passion! (Which Undyne shows!)''

I'd rather not try to connect the personality of the monsters to their specific chromatic attacks, since it's not implied, and since they don't really fit anyways, especially Undyne. It could also be just the type of behavior of the attack itself, if we were to treat it like a living being (as silly as it may look). Note: this is not what I did when I mentioned Toriel. I only mentioned her, because she displayed something that Sans said she has, that coincidentally also appears as the name of a trait that closely matches her. Not because of anything that has to do with her fighting style."

Isn't Undyne's whole thing doing what she does for the good and betterment of Monsters? Wanting them to be set free because it's what they all want and hope for. Sounds like kindness to me, even if she herself is violent.

"So, that's what green is. It's passion (which COMpassion is asubset of).''

True, but Undyne's passion is for battles. Compassion is "a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering," (according to dictionary.com) so the two aren't equal in this instance. Unless you compare the misfortune to us being a human, and the desire being Undyne's desire to take our soul."

Once again, Undyne definitely fits. I think the flag is referring to the ball as something you care FOR, not exclusivelya friend or foe. Something the Monsters definitely fall under with Undyne.

"However, that only brings more suffering, actual physical suffering, and removes only one small issue that is causing no actual physical harm. So it depends on whether you define compassion with, or without, any exceptions. If without, then this cannot work. If with, then that's subpar to compassion without exceptions, and yet, here we're speaking of this exceptional version in the context of the trait of kindness, which goes to imply that kindness isn't actually the kindest trait (I mean, you'd expect the name of the trait to also match its own description, rather than some smaller subset of it, right?)"

Right.

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"Given this, determination makes quite a good candidate for being the Seventh Trait.''

Yes, Frisk demonstrates it. But considering the proof that all humans had the same abilities as Frisk concerning the timey wimey mumbo jumbo, I'd not give it to Frisk just yet. It's a very close tie. We could also do two things here: fight about the validity of this proof, or fight about Frisk's supposedly unique ability to refuse and its impact towards the uniqueness of their trait and their nature, compared to the other humans. Or even both at the same time."

I'd say let's do both, but one at a time so there's no confusion.

"To elaborate on the latter, just to clear it up a bit, we could say, as an example, one of these three things:

that Frisk's refuse ability is unique, and that it's enough for their soul to gain the DT title,

or that it's unique, but that since it makes up a minority of their DT powers, it shouldn't be the deciding factor when it comes to their trait, implying we're wrong about DT being a trait,

or that the other children also had the refuse ability (but couldn't use it because they drowned in despair), once again concluding that it cannot be DT.

Ergo, this is not a place to draw solid conclusions, due to a lack of info. You could use other deciding factors to choose one, or just choose one based on a head canon and then hope to develop something bigger that won't contradict itself later on, which is what I've done essentially (since I've found no other deciding factors). And imo, I haven't really stumbled upon any significant contradictions yet, hence why I'm sticking with it."

Given that the kids are dead, I think it's safe to say that they didn't have REFUSE.

My stance is that while all humans do have DT, enough to get SAVE when in the Underground if the other SOULS are anything to go by, only those with Red SOULS can REFUSE and even then when they reach the threshold to do so. I wouldn't say Bravery, Justice, Kindness, Patience, or Integrity are some things that can spur you to literally refuse death itself. Perseverance is similar, but again, not really something that would spur you to do that in the situation the Frisk was in with Asriel.

"It even fits the criteria of being all six together!''

Indeed, because you can say you are determined to do X, regardless of what X actually is. Essentially, you're saying that you have a "will to do X", which really is a phrase that fits every X imaginable, save for maybe a complete unwillingness to do anything, i.e. a forced paradox (so that's excluded automatically from the selection of things that X could be).

In other words, it's not really a miraculous fit, there's just no contradiction present in it. Which isn't a really convincing argument. It's about as vague as me comparing the traits to the 7 chakras."

It's the only canon fit we have, and aren't you the one that uses the "no contradiction present" thing for his own argument? Isn't that a bit self contradictory?

"However, evidence suggests DT AN fluctuate!''

Indeed. I knew this when I was constructing my head canon. It's a case of the "choose one and align the rest accordingly" approach that is so common, people just arguing round and round about the same stuff over and over, using intricate circular logic, where the circles have been elevated from the "fact plane" by their own personal head canons.

It's as if the more logical interpretations of certain uncertainities in the plot don't align with each other, so you gotta take one and sacrifice the other. I've chosen to sacrifice the DT = red head canon in favor of something more plain, because I disliked the notion that Frisk is the "chosen one" or whatever. I hated to place that burden upon them in my works."

I never go with Frisk being a "chosen one", at most it's just a case of them having the right qualities at that time. Chara doesn't latch onto the other six kids after all.

"But really, if there's only one type of DT that does fluctuate, then what does keep the souls constant in power? I actually can't continue talking here, because I forgot what your argument for this was. Can you fill me in?"

DT is what keeps the SOUL existing, it's strength so to speak (think in terms of how long something last). SP is the actual POWER of the SOUL itself, its...well...power (think in terms of the strength of a weightlifter or boxer when they lift or punch).

"Furthermore, Asriel's battle is once again one of those variables that can have different explanations based on how you interpret it, based on your head canons. Specifically, this time it's about the canonity of the meta, and the deal with plot holes. What is a plot hole and what isn't? Can we make plot holes canon, should we fix them, or should we disregard them completely? And then the same questions once more, but with Toby's perspective factored in."

Okay, I'm saying this now, only things that Toby himself has confirmed or stated in official material are to be used here. No trying to think like him, or get into his head, capiche?

"Me personally: Us managing to force a reload by restarting the game during Asriel's battle IS a plot hole, since it doesn't "feel" right, considering the meaning of the buildup towards this battle, and considering that it's not actually acknowledged by Flowey."

If I were still using that argument, I'd talk about redundancy and how pointless it would be from his perspective. But because I'm not, due to having the much better canon admission of him still not having control of the timeline, I won't.

"And once again we could argue about the legitimacy of these arguments, but this is just my head canon. In other words, we go back to what I've said above, that this is yet another variable point in the plot.

Variable points arise when the game is vague about its own mechanics. And a whole new dimension of questions pops up when you start tinkering with the meta as being possibly canon."

Agreed.

"Being Yourself:Is that a Trait? No. It isn't. We already showed that was integrity.''

My interpretation was that red can be anything that doesn't fit the other 6 traits. That's how I've explained the 2nd flag to myself. It's less verbatim and more philosophical than the other 6, essentially. As for red being a sum of the other 6, in a way, it is. When it's neither, you can think of it as being arbitrarily close to the others by the same amount simultaneously."

Can't it be both then? Both flags imply both views by your train of thought.

"Also, this reminds me of one cuckoo that I'm currently arguing with on Tumblr. His arguments are good, but he often resorts to "why didn't Toby write THAT then?" I hope we can avoid such arguments here. Actually, could we avoid constantly taking everything so literally in general? I'm tired of arguing about semantics already. Yes, they're important, but we're never gonna reach a conclusion. Especially when we start pulling other arguments and facts into the debate, hoping to clear up the meaning of the word(s) that way. Because then we introduce more flip flaps that we can argue are with or against our theses and just end up complicating the entire equation. And instead of one day happening to introduce some final deciding factor, we're gonna introduce one that we've already introduced before, just forgot about it, and we're stuck in a circle. That's how it always happens. It's our collective inability to focus on more than one logical variable that nearly drove us mad."

I refer you to my above spiel about Toby Arguments.

"Yes, everyone has DT. Just like everyone has bravery, not to cower in fear at everything they see, have passion to do stuff, have patience, since they don't grow impatient after literally 1 Planck Time has passed without them getting what they want, etc.''

You are a step ahead of me I see. But here's where I'm a step ahead of you, the talk about quantifying these traits. That's where it all suddenly gets very complicated and where we all can make up ad hoc reasons as for why it's this percentage and not the other one. Just the notion that these traits are quantifiable is a head canon on its own to begin with, as I've mentioned above."

Again, what do you mean by quantifiable?

"What if the soul just picks a color by reading and analyzing the mind of the human at birth? While that could result in inaccurate predictions, I mostly dislike the idea that the human nature is dictated by some 7 fluids which logically cannot give you every possible type of a human personality. How do you express negative behavioral factors? How do you express factors which are not even included in these 7, and NOT just by saying that they are a subset of one of the 7 (because how would you then distinguish between the trait itself and one of its subsets, how would you quantize which one is more dominant?)"

They don't dictate your personality or quirks. They're decided BY your personality and quirks. That not only easily solves the problem here, but is also what I've been saying: that the trait you exhibit the most is what determines your SOUL Color, MODE, and Magic (there WERE Human magicians after all, so they are capable of magic; they're just not as versatile as Monsters).

There's nothing that says that these are the only seven traits, and that there can't be more. These are just the main core seven.

"There's too many questions and not enough answers for my liking. This is why I prefer the theory that the traits are like metaphorical, most of the time accurate labels, instead of physical fluids."

I refer you to the immediate above sentences.