Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26006155-20190403163405/@comment-32182236-20190411011317

I’m impressed you wrote 30 or so lines about my two-line opening statement that “The story of Undertale is all about SOULs.” But since I make this argument over time in the next 120+ pages, it would have been better to read the entire document, then write about the opening line.

You started by already claiming it as fact, though. That made me, and potentially other parts of the audience, believe we were supposed to already believe this.

We’ve argued about Kanashi for a long time. Just because Kanashi absorbed a human soul doesn’t mean that it was acquired through violence. It could have been an accident, or giving a loved human a second chance at life, FNAF-style perhaps. The Waterfall Glyphs also state that inspite of Kanashi, the humans had nothing to fear when they launched their sneak attack on the monsters. But if Kanash was a dark predator, the human’s fear would be legit. So I still believe, just like William in FNAF, that Kanashi’s story is far more complex, and oversimplifying it would be a mistake.

Perhaps. We'll see how the trial goes. But Jerry's definitely evil.

Whether or not it’s an iron-clad rule, the humans in Undertale’s story that I’ve uncovered were definitely more likely to do dark things than the monsters would. The story seems to be using the mostly-innocent monsters as a way to contrast the actions of humans and force us to ask what we’re made of, and if we’re really doing the right thing.

Would you.. elaborate on that?

Chara's plan (pre-death) was no worse than Undyne's plan.

The Fallen Down monsters only woke up after Alphys injected them with *ridiculous* amounts of Determination. And even then, they only opened their eyes and started acting normal again.

That's just it. It took time. Flowey was chosen to be determination way back in Entry 8, and he didn't become sentient until Entry 18. And in fact, there is evidence that the determination started to take effect over time for Flowey as well. Flowey was in Alphys' True Lab.. But Flowey's "save point" was at a garden:https://youtu.be/qph9HYpS8V4?t=185

Clearly, Flowey didn't gain the ability right away. The determination didn't take effect right away. Same thing with the Amalgamates. It's not that Alphys didn't put in enough, it's that she didn't wait long enough.

Undyne became a super-soldier from trace amounts of Determination she received over a long period of time. The Fallen should have all reached her power level shortly after the injections started.. But instead it took ages to wake them up.

The Amalgamates were injected with determination in Entry 6, persisted long enough to still be alive in Entry 9 (DT will do that, Alphys), at Entry 10, Flowey isn't sentient, Alphys tries again with DT in Entry 12, and they start waking up in Entry 13. (By Entry 14, they're all awake.) The melting happens at Entry 16, and Flowey disappears in Entry 18.

Flowey got more DT than the Amalgamates did, as he's the one with SLR. So, one of two anomalies must be the case.

1-Flowey took longer to come back to life, despite being given more DT (Entries 6-8 span shorter time than Entries 16-18)

2-It took the DT quite a long time to start to take effect... (Entries 6-8 span longer time than Entries 16-18)

Undyne became a super-soldier from trace amounts of Determination she received over a long period of time. The Fallen should have all reached her power level shortly after the injections started.. But instead it took ages to wake them up.

Exactly. Long periods of time. The DT gradually had its effect. As I later say (in a different way) in Chapter 4, we have a confounding variable. This would be an uncontrolled experiment.

And, as I state later, the hidden lore in Undertale says that monsters aren’t experienced with disease, and only Fall Down when experience old age. Which Aaron and Shyren’s Cousin couldn’t have been experiencing, because they were young.

Buttercup poisoning seems to be an exception to the "no illness" rule. But as I say in Chapter 4, there really isn't evidence that they are young.

Their fallen state was *not natural*. And neither were the Amalgamates, because as we’ve seen in fusions like Omega Flowey, the souls within the fusion still retain some of their individuality, and are able to rebel and unfuse from the whole if agitated enough.

Wow, I think I predicted a lot of these arguments, because this is something else I bring up in Chapter 4! Absorbing SOULs is not the same thing as literally fusing and melting the bodies as well.

The Waterfall Glyphs state that the SOUL of a living monster CAN be removed.. It would simply take a great amount of power. The sort of power that only a mad scientist could summon.

Or.. a monster-human combo? A Kanashian?

Shyren is stated as being a young monster. And Mettaton’s ghost diaries talk about how Shyren’s cousin fell down. A cousin wouldn’t be much older. Her cousin shouldn’t have fallen down naturally.. But she did. A mystery for theorists to solve.

Where does it say Shyren is young? And nowhere in Undertale has there ever been a grandparent of a child still alive. (Grandpa Semi doesn't count, because he doesn't actually appear in the game) It seems as though we only have two generations alive at a time. The monster age of maturity really does seem to be quite high. Monsters are likely already more than half of the way from birth to Fallen Down by the time they have a child. As a result, the standard deviation of ages between cousins is probably far higher for monsters than for us humans.

So, there's Chapter 0's response down.