Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-683886-20190314020851

Note that this is an idea, not a theory. There's not enough evidence to either prove or disprove this, as far as I can tell. It would explain some things though and I’m interested to hear some feedback.

The idea: Boss Monsters are descended from humans.

Humans and monsters coexisting peacefully on the surface (either before the war and/or post-pacifist) would very likely lead to romantic relationships between the two, even if such relationships were rare. Boss Monsters are also the only kind of monster whose souls can survive after death, if only momentarily. Having human ancestry would explain why. (It would also explain Asgore’s random patches of yellow hair, but I suppose that’s beside the point.)

I was perusing the Boss Monster wiki page a while back and was intrigued by the “devilish traits” comparison. The Salem Witch Trials immediately came to mind, and I couldn’t help but wonder if a similar mindset may have contributed to the humans’ decision to wage war on the monsters, namely, that breeding with monsters was producing “demons” or some such. This would fit nicely with the given reason of humans fearing monsters’ soul-absorbing ability (e.g. ”the monsters are demons and they’re stealing our souls!”). The fact that Boss Monsters are unaging (unless they decide to have a child themselves) would have likely contributed to such a mindset as well.

It’s a pity we don’t understand exactly how the “Boss parents’ soul energy flows into the child” thing works, because that would bring up another point. The main questions I would have are: can two Boss parent souls sustain more than one or two children at a time, and how quickly do/would the parents age? My initial thought when I discovered this information in-game was that each Boss couple could only sustain their soul energy flowing into a single child, and that once the child hit their prime the parents would die of old age. If this were the case, where the flip would the Boss Monsters come from to begin with? Their population would be cut at least in half with each generation. If this were indeed the case, then being descended from humans would also make sense, since that would give them an initial population to work with before they all started having kids (lulz) and dying. Not saying this is the only place an initial population could come from, of course, but it would make sense.

Like I said, no real definitive information either way, I just thought it was an interesting idea. This would obviously assume that interbreeding between humans and monsters is even possible in some form or other. And, really, Boss Monsters are right in the ballpark of what I’d expect from a human/monster hybrid: monster soul type (since only magic could support such an odd hybrid), incredibly powerful, and souls that can linger a bit after death like human souls do. 