Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-31536324-20190117214835/@comment-27136653-20190206012744

Replying to the first post in this reply chain:

''While the red SOUL trait was never explicitly said, we are given a few clues about it. First, it needs to be something that combines the six other traits-The 1st red flag makes it very clear that the red trait is thencombination of the other six. Second, it needs to be something that Frisk has demonstrated across all routes-After all, Frisk has the red trait, so they must demonstrate it-Else they'd have a different trait! Frisk cannot be classified as a different trait under ANY route, under ANY canon circumstances, because we always see them with a red SOUL in-game! (canon circumstances-Circumstances that you can actually get yorself into within the actual game. "What-if" scenarioes inaccessible from the game do not count, and Frisk is allowed to have a different trait then)''

Tl;dr: red must be the sum of the other 6 traits and Frisk must have it and nothing else in all routes.

That is the basic premise given by the game. And I will give my own opinion about it later below.

''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".

orderly system is the only way to achieve such surefire accuracy

But this is implying that if mayhem is present, it is impossible to achieve a surefire accuracy. I.e. it is impossible for the yellow trait to manifest itself when it is said it should. But again, an unimportant nitpick. I'm sure this is not what you meant.

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). 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.

''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.

''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.

But why would concern and care for the enemy help you win?

Once again, assuming the ball is an enemy, something to act hostile towards, is where we might be making our mistake. Since it's not actually said that the ball is an enemy. It could be perceived as an enemy by those more energetic traits, which do use brute force to win over it. But using their conclusion to streamline the conclusion of the other traits is wrong.

''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.

''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.

''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.

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?)

So either way, we reach some sort of nonsense, so I argue you're wrong on this one, this isn't what green is. At least not if you keep trying to pull Undyne into the equation.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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. 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.

''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.

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.

Have any of you ever done this? Ever taken a step back and actually tried to SEE what's causing all these cogs to get stuck each time the three of us enter a debate?

''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. 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?)

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.