Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26006155-20190403163405/@comment-32182236-20190415020107

--Chapter 6:You are not your character!--

Frisk has a past, but he can’t remember it.

How do we know? We don't know Frisk's name until they reveal it for themselves. They likely do know their backstory, but we don't, either because: A-We're supposed to make it up, as only we/Frisk know the answer to why they climbed the mountain, or B:This is a mystery that will be revealed in the Mystery Kickstarter game. But Frisk's knowledge does not equal our knowledge. Just as a player shouldn't use their knowledge as if their character knows it as well when they don't (metagaming), so too should we avoid assuming that we know everything they do.

Each game he wakes up, wearing a bandage that has already been used many times. The fall hit his head, and we start the game knowing as much as he does: next to nothing.

You mean as a regular bandage, right? Not as a healing item? I suppose you could say it's been used before because it's a "gross bandage" as Undyne put it. Or perhaps, since Chara is the narrator, and we are her, the narrator only knows what we know, and Frisk has no way to share with us what he remembers. We can see how other characters respond to what Frisk says, but we can never hear what Frisk is actually saying ourselves.

Please explain what lead you to the conclusion that we are Chara. The common consensus is that we're either Frisk, or a third, otherworldly entity. (I fall under the "We're Frisk" group) Why would Gaster, a nearly invulnerable ghost with the mind of a mad scientist and the power of several souls combined, be afraid of a little kid whose most furious strike can barely knock over a tomato?

Because.. he isn't? Either way, Genocide Frisk does have a lot of power. They can kill Mettaton NEO in just one hit. That's not Chara, they don't take over until the end of the Sans fight. But the first step to getting there involves background details that are easy to overlook: Long, dramatic flashes of light, followed by thundering darkness.

You mean the signature Undertale transitions? One to start the game, one to reach the end of what was the "demo", and the last to finish the game. When we first type in our Character’s name, there’s a dramatic surge of light and a deafening swell of sound that drowns out all reality. And then Frisk’s story begins, as we wake up in the Ruins, having just fallen down on a bed of golden flowers.

We don't type in our character's name. We type in Chara's name. Our character is Frisk. Yes. It's a story transistion. After you're done naming everyone in Pokémon Gen I, your character model shrinks, then it fades to white, before your character house appears. And there’s a long hallway to the east that leads to a door, making this first room look like a key.

Which shape strangely does not appear in the demo. There’s a BOOM: Undertale! By BOOM: TobyFox! And then Frisk steps into the Underground as the Ruins door seals behind him, and notices one of Alphys’ cameras watching him from the rocks.

The Ruins is basically the tutorial level (That's where Toriel's name comes from). Now that Frisk is out of the safe harbor of the Ruins, the real game begins. This is also where the demo ended. An ending that started just like the beginning.

Book Ends, anyone?

It’s very interesting to note that except for the tiny little pillar on the right of the door, which is missing in the Key Room at the beginning, all three of these doors have identical sprites. Which is uncanny, because each door shows -exactly- the same timeworn marks, as if they were all the very same door. These doorways aren’t just simple portals, they’re significant bookmarks in Undertale’s story.

Yes, start of the game, end of the tutorial, and end of the game. And just stepping through these doors doesn’t cause the booming flash by itself. At the end of a True Pacifist run, you can walk all the way back to the Key Room at the beginning to talk to Asriel. And whether you’re coming or going, there’s no booming flash. These are just simple doorways now, who have already served their purpose in bookmarking the story.

True. In the True Pacifist Ending where you get the flash, but not the boom, as the previous story is ending and a new story is about to begin.

Right. You don't just get a title drop, you get the full credits.. After an ending cutscene. This seems to be The True Ending. It does seem like the True Pacifist ending is the canon ending to Undertale. Because after Frisk wakes up, he finds himself in another version of the Key Room, surrounded by all his friends. And once Frisk moves to the last door, Undertale tells him that his adventure will really be over this time, in contrast to all the other times before.

They have nothing more to strive for. But really, you could argue that either the True Pacifist or the Genocide Ending is canon. It might even be Soulless Pacifist that's canon. The Beginning and End of Undertale are certainly important moments. But what about the Second Flash? The one that happens just before Frisk steps into the Underground?

As I said-End of the demo, end of the tutorial. It’s as if the Neutral Ending is connected, not to the beginning of the game, but to the Ruins Door instead.

..No. The title drop didn't happen at the start of the game because we literally just SAW the title just before we entered our name! You don't typically see the title drop in a video game just after you entered your character's name. Because outside the Ruins door is when Frisk meets Sans for the first time. Why can't it just be that the tutorial is over, and the real game starts here? While he’s officially on duty to watch for humans, recognizes Frisk as one immediately, and has standing orders from King Asgore to harvest the soul of any human that arrives to ensure the freedom of all of monsterkind… Sans decides to help Frisk rather than turn him.

We later learn the reason why. Go out with him to MTT again, Ferret. (Or just watch a video) Sans tells Frisk to hide behind “that conveniently-shaped lamp” that’s sitting out in the middle of the field, unplugged and useless. But this oddly-shaped lamp turns out to be a pixel-perfect match to Frisk’s silhouette! As if Sans not only knew what humans looked like, but what Frisk would look like in particular!

"our reports showed a massive anomaly in the time-space continuum. timelines jumping left and right, stopping and starting..."-Sans

Sans was doing research on the timeline, on the anomaly.. Frisk. He could have learned that way. It turns out the lamp wasn’t necessary, because even when No Mercy Frisk refuses to hide behind it, Papyrus doesn’t seem to recognize Frisk as a human anyway.

And to anyone who tries to say this is only because Frisk is doing a Genocide, and can't be recognized that way, because even Sans says you should keep pretending to be a human.. On non-Genocide routes, Papyrus has to ask Sans if Frisk is a human. But it does leave the question: How did Sans know that lamp would perfectly hide Frisk in advance? Sans must have been the one to place it there, and the lamp’s unique design suggests Sans created it, too. A simple snowman or large cardboard box would have also hidden Frisk with much less effort from the supposedly lazy Sans, and be far less conspicuous.

How does the unique design point to Sans? It’s almost like Sans was trying to use the lamp to send Frisk a message? That he knew Frisk was coming?

Sans and Papyrus become less like enemies and more like friends with every step on the road to Snowdin, with one half-baked puzzle and jape after another.

They never were enemies. Sans just likes being lazy, and Papyrus doesn't like laziness or his bad puns. But they still love each other. They're acting like, well, siblings. If you fail his boss fight repeatedly, Papyrus will actually start giving you hints about how to defeat him, starts leaving Frisk more gifts in the doghouse, and eventually asks if Frisk just want a place to stay, revealing that he never intended to hand Frisk over to Undyne anyway.

Papyrus really is the sweetest, isn't he? And if you really double down on losing to Papyrus, he eventually offer to let you skip the battle entirely to get on with the game, and accept his own defeat. Acting less and less like a human-hunting fanatic, and more and more like a co-conspirator with Sans to keep Frisk safe.

..Why Frisk specifically? If some random human "Elizabeth" fell, what's to say Papyrus wouldn't do the same thing with her?

It’s hard to tell exactly how much Papyrus knows, and how much of his behavior is just acting. In his phone call when Frisk approaches the Core, Papyrus seems sad for a moment, as if knowing something bad is eventually going to happen.

The Core. The place that Gaster very well could have fallen into. Sans and Papyrus aren’t just a couple of goofballs Frisk happened to bump into, their story is much deeper than this, and their fate was entwined with Frisk’s from the beginning.

The former, I agree with-Their story is deeper. The latter.. Can you elaborate, please? But is Sans really just lazy? Or putting up an ingenious act in being just lazy enough to prevent Undyne from replacing him with someone who actually would hurt Frisk? We're not sure. But what we DO know is that he wasn't always lazy, because of the Genocide Route. Why care if everything will just be reset anyways?

There's two ways to look at this. One, he really is lazy, for that specific reason.. Or two, yes, he's acting here.. Because if Frisk dies, that's another reset, and he doesn't want that.

In the neutral ending where you kill every main character except Papyrus, Papyrus becomes the ruler of the Underground, and Sans works tirelessly in the background to try and keep the monster world from falling apart. Now that the anomaly is gone, his reasons for being lazy are also gone. So he returns to his original self. The No Mercy ending reveals that Sans is actually the most powerful boss in the game, who’s several orders of magnitude stronger than Asgore, the erstwhile “King of All Monsters”.

Yeah. He's basically doing the real life equivalent of powergaming. He breaks the rules, and uses a KR ability to ignore invincibility frames. I'm sure if we got rid of KR, Sans would be the easiest fight in the game, besides those one-hit-kill bosses. He's using all the tools he has.. Gaster Blasters.. That would have been made by Gaster. Sans is incredibly powerful, very smart, and not lazy at all. He would certainly make a strong King. The only reason Sans doesn’t become King is because he chooses not to, feeling for some personal reason that it would be wrong for him to rule the monsters.

I guess he'd rather just make bad puns.

It takes Chara all of her epic gear and LVL 19 power just to have a ghost of a chance at defeating Sans.

Wrong. You can beat Sans with a stick and a bandage. And it's equally as difficult.

Right before the Megalovania fight, Sans says “Sorry old lady. This is why I never make promises”. This could mean regret at making that promise.. Or it could mean that Sans never made such a promise in the first place.

I'd say it's the former. Why would he need to apologize for breaking a promise he never made? And Sans’ refusal to use Toriel’s name is strange. Because at some point, one of them MUST have had contact with the other beyond telling knock-knock jokes through the Ruins door. Toriel and Sans don't recognize each other in True Pacifist until they hear each other.

One of the first things Toriel does is give Frisk a cell phone, an older model with a keychain attached to it. This is the same keychain that Frisk uses to pick up the keys in New Home.

Of course! Why not use it? Do you think they had their own?

And even on a No Mercy run, when Alphys doesn’t upgrade your phone, Chara-possessed Frisk still uses this original key chain from Toriel to manage the keys.

...Yes. Because that was the only one they had. Because if you repeatedly reload the game and talk to Sans in the Judgment Hall on a Pacifist run, playing the password game to prove you’re a time traveler just like Sans himself.. Sans reveals that the key to his mysterious room is already on your keychain.

..So why isn't this timey wimey magic again?

..I request an investigation. After the speech is made, and the key was "already in the keychain", reload again, and try to enter the door without talking to Sans again. If it doesn't work, your theory crumbles. If it does work, it has merit to it. Which would make sense, because Sans is always the one who has Frisk’s phone number at the end of the game.

Right.. And he never asks for it. The post-Pacifist dialog reveals that Sans and Alphys know each other. And CoolSkeleton95, revealed to be Papyrus wearing sunglasses, is friends with Alphys on Undernet. Alphys has been using her camera network to record all of Frisk’s movements from the moment he stepped into the Underground, so any friend of hers would have constant updates about what Frisk was up to. And since Sans and Papyrus are already friends of hers, they can keep track of Frisk through her.

They'd only get the kind of updates that we get from Alphys before she realizes that we're already friends with her. The big question is.. Who called Toriel to join the others at the end of the game on a Pacifist run?

Nobody. She came on her own because she was worried. The extra time from the True Lab must have been enough. Sans and Toriel have been talking to each other for a LONG TIME already!

Yes. But just through the door. But while their communications through the Ruins Doors were verbal, Sans and Toriel have also been conversing with each other in a non-verbal fashion. And also in a non-visual fashion, because Toriel didn’t recognize Sans by sight.

Evidence, please? Toriel did mention that Alphys upgraded her phone to add a Texting feature. But while the game makes it sound like this just happened, Undertale is very good at trying to make us assume things in haste. Toriel and Sans started texting each other while standing two feet apart, and it’s quickly clear that they’re both skilled with texting, reveling in each other’s dork-ness like old friends, to Papyrus’ chagrin. Alphys must have upgraded Toriel’s phone with texting some time ago.

Actually, Toriel was just starting to figure out how it worked. However you look at it, Alphys and Toriel must have met face to face at some point in the past for Alphys to upgrade her phone and receive the Fallen Down Vegetoids. And even if they didn’t meet directly, Alphys would have certainly seen Queen Toriel on her extensive camera network, so Alphys must have known who Toriel was.

Toriel was just starting to learn to text after the True Pacifist Ending. I'd say Alphys upgraded her phone while Frisk was asleep. But Alphys and Papyrus both acted like they didn’t know who Toriel was when they met her, both whispering their surprise to Frisk. However, Undyne, who wasn’t part of the conspiracy, correctly guessed that Toriel was Asgore’s ex right away. So Alphys is definitely faking her surprise here, she must know who Toriel is.

..Or Toriel had nothing to do with the Fallen Down monsters, as I explain in Chapter 4! I’m not sure I believe Papyrus’ witty confusion, either. If CoolSkeleton95 was born in 1995, he would have been at least 16 when Toriel left. Papyrus has a strangely deep vocabulary for someone who acts like a fool, and even he would have known there was a Queen, and probably what she looked like.

How do you know he wasn't born in 2095? And Sans certainly knew that the key to his room was already on Frisk’s chain. Because Sans himself pointed this out to Frisk after testing to see that Frisk was able to time travel, just like he could. And not only is Sans testing Frisk’s memory to see if he remembers to use this time-traveling ability.. But Sans will only reveal the truth about his key if Frisk is completely innocent.

Which is pretty risky, considering that people will commonly do Genocide right after a True Pacifist. ..Already knowing the secret. And Sans certainly planned for Frisk to use his room key. Because after Frisk goes into this dark room, and the stripes on his shirt start mysteriously phasing between one and two stripes as if two timelines were crossing in this weird extradimensional space… Papyrus arrives and turns on the light switch, momentarily mistaking Frisk for Sans. And Frisk finds a note taped to the treadmill he wakes up on, which says “the truth is that you got owned, nerd……” continuing the very conversation the two of them had in the Judgement chamber.

Of course he did! This broken machine, which Sans with all his powers and knowledge of Quantum Mechanics still seems unable to fix, is like the very vehicle that brought Sans, and any traveling companions he might have had with him, to Snowdin in the first place.

What makes you think that's the case? Why isn't it the machine Gaster was using to observe the timelines? And Sans has just gifted access to these most private of his treasures… to Frisk.

Right. Alphys even knows that Sans was the one who called Toriel rather than Papyrus, which means Alphys knew Toriel was coming in advance, and shouldn’t have been surprised to see her.

When did she say this? And Sans certainly does have Toriel’s number, because he and Papyrus go to live with her in several of the endings, and she actually opens the door for them.

Well, yes. And if Sans was really just protecting Frisk because of a vague promise he *didn’t* make to the voice of an unknown woman he knew *very well*, why on earth did he go to such lengths to arrange for Alphys to smuggle the key to his legendary room onto the keychain of the phone Toriel handed to Frisk?

Simple:He didn't. Scratch that.. How did Sans, or anyone else, even know that Frisk was coming in the FIRST PLACE? They’d have to know that to put all these tests in place in advance. And, of all the humans of any age and size who might have fallen from above, how did Sans know Frisk’s Exact Body Shape to put The Convenient Lamp in place before he arrived?

Refer to the anomaly research. In fact.. Sans’ ability to remember rewound time is eerie, too.

He reads Frisk's face to see how many times they died. He doesn't just remember the timelines. However, if you repeatedly fight Sans, SANS is the one who tells Frisk how many times they’ve fought. Or how many times they’ve talked together, when he’s seeing if you’re worthy of his room key.

In the latter case, it's because of Frisk saying the codewords. How is Sans doing this? And why is he so interested in helping Frisk, a human, evade the monsters that believe taking his soul will lead to their freedom?

Because he doesn't want Asgore destroying all of humanity? He's not a warloving monster, but a kind one?

Because like Frisk, Sans is also a human.

We'll see about that...