Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25493869-20170116115323/@comment-25493869-20170117010623

Mabian wrote: Alright, so I've taken a look at the post. Below is my critique. I'll break it down into the major points brought forth to try to support the argument as a whole:

1) Gaster was involved in the DT experiments./Alternating styles in the entries.

This theory has been presented in different forms already, and I've made a longer response in another thread for why the theory doesn't work.

But I should note that you actually contradict yourself at one point. At the end of Point 2 you say that Gaster must have put together the blueprints for the DT Extraction Machine. Which seems right, except earlier you say that Gaster injected himself with determination and, upon realizing he was melting, threw himself into the Core. But this doesn't make sense, as Gaster would have injected himself with determination before the machine for extracting determination was actually constructed. So how could he have gotten his hands on determination to inject himself with?

2) "We" in the True Lab entries.

You point out something that seems interesting at first glance. However, you make a leap in logic which isn't warranted.

To think about it another way, let's look at what would need to be true if there were indeed multiple people involved in the experiments. We should see the use of "we" rather than "I" in general in the entries, and we should see Alphys talking about how Asgore asked various monsters to investigate the nature of the Barrier and how Alphys worked with some other people. But she always talks about it in very personal ways: Asgore asked "me," and "I" did these experiments.

Instead, it's worthwhile to think about what other meanings "we" could have. And the simplest explanation is that "we" refers to monster-kind or to a more general effort to destroy the Barrier: we as monsters or we as "me and the king" will have to use what is available to us, etc., etc.

3) Gaster isn't related to Sans and Papyrus.

While I myself am not quite sure where I side on this issue, the points you try to bring up to disprove the familial relationship don't work.

A) While Gaster using Wing Dings is itself only a theory for what the initials stand for, you rely on the previous theory that Gaster wrote the other entries to show that Gaster doesn't write in Wing Dings at other points. Except there is no evidence that Gaster actually wrote the other entries, nor does it explain why Gaster is writing in Wing Dings in the one of the two Entry 17's.

B) You say Gaster doesn't look exactly like Sans and Papyrus with exposed teeth and nosehole, but from your own theory there is an explanation for this: Gaster is melting from determination. So of course Gaster would look different, sufficiently different to not fully resemble a skeleton monster. The physical resemblance point is contradicted by your own theory.

C) The photo could have any number of characters, but saying it could be any combination of characters doesn't really serve to disprove any other explanation.

D) I've never heard this point trying to show Gaster and Papyrus are related. I agree with your assessment that the point doesn't make sense, but disproving a bad argument for a conclusion doesn't really disprove the conclusion itself.

E) You say resemblance does not mean a family relationship, using Asgore and Toriel as examples. This is a fair point, but of course, Asgore and Toriel are (or were) married, which is the basis of a family. Even where there is no genetic link between Asgore and Toriel, for the most part the use of similar monster types would generally be meant to show some form of relationship. If you wanted to try to make the point you're going for, it would be more useful to point to the various rabbit monsters in Snowdin, or some other set of similar looking monsters which have no relationship whatsoever, rather than pointing to the Boss Monsters.

4) Sans's dialogue

I'll skip over most of this, as the specific points are difficult to argue when there is so little information, though piecing together tiny pieces of dialogue like this, with no indication that these things are connected, is heavily suspect.

But I should note that the "sun" thing is a point that is and has been completely overblown. Most importantly, all of the other characters appear to know what the sun is, aside from Papyrus. And Papyrus is already known to be completely clueless. So why it is relevant that Papyrus doesn't know what the sun is, while Sans (and everyone else) does is beyond me.

I won't go into your treatment about the relationship between Sans and Gaster. Suffice to say, you need to add back the possible familiar relationship, since your attempt to disprove that claim does not succeed. Thank you so much for the input!

Since you've brought it up, I've noticed how many times i've contradicted myself :/ I'll do some more research based off what you've said and modify some of the things i've mentioned it. Again, thanks for the input! I really appreciate it