Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26006155-20200107155350/@comment-32182236-20200116155645

Only humans have the ability to save and load, and fill themselves up again with Determination. As Flowey recalls himself being filled with when he realized he was going to die, and didn't want to. And Asriel absorbed Chara's soul before he died.

Yes, that's the general thing. But Alphys explicitly created an exception by giving the flower implied to have become Flowey determination right from the human SOULs. That's where it came from.

Once we save all six of our friends in the Hyperdeath Asriel fight, we discover a 7th soul resonating inside Asriel. And unlike all the others, the moment we start trying to save this particular soul... Asriel immediately feels the effect.

Yes. That is correct. All of the SOULs exist within Asriel's SOUL. Including number seven.

Since they're under Asriel's spell, it takes time to break through it. But for number seven, we're going directly to Asriel himself. Saving Asriel through Asriel should be easier than saving Toriel through Asriel, right?

Something else I noticed.

Strangely, as your friends remembered you... Something else began resonating within the SOUL, stronger and stronger. It seems that there's still one last person that needs to be saved. But who...? ... Suddenly, you realize. You reach out and call their name.

This person was WITHIN Asriel's SOUL. Two possibilities that I can think of.


 * 1) ASRIEL's soul is simply the combination of all the SOULs he absorbed, much like Chara and Asriel's SOUL combined into one.
 * 2) Asriel has a SOUL for some unexplained reason, and the Lost SOUL is within it. This rules out Asriel himself being the lost one, since it exists INSIDE of Asriel's SOUL, and thus cannot BE Asriel. This would make the Lost Soul in fact be Chara.

The first I'd say is more likely, though. And it does allow for number seven to actually be Asriel.

The reason Flowey is so nasty, while Asriel was famous for being compassionate, is that Flowey can feel every emotion there is.. except compassion. He mentoins "compassion" by name twice, knowing that he should be able to feel it, but not even his own mother can bring it out in him anymore. Flowey contains a human soul.. that has had its abilty to feel compassion, damaged.

Or no SOUL at all. Why do you think they say that SOULs are made of love, hope, and compassion?

They're not, since you can have a SOUL and have none of these things.. But perhaps this is just a common case of getting the order of causality wrong.

SOULs are where love, hope, and compassion COME from. So with no SOUL, you can't feel any of these things. Which is what lead to the idea that that's what they're MADE of.

Without a SOUL, you can still feel all the OTHER feelings.

Also, note that these happen to be the feelings that are neither primal (like fear, pain), a result of cognition (boredom, curiosity), or a combination or result of feelings from those two things. (Like anger, for example.)

And who do we see the moment we touch Asriels' 7th soul? A flashback of Chara. Which is the name that Frisk calls out.

We get a flashback of Chara and ASRIEL. So it's one of the two that we're saving. I believe it's Asriel.

Something terrible happened to Chara back in her home village that damaged her soul. And she feels the village people are responsible.

But did they love and have compassion for Asriel when they were alive? If so, their SOUL was not damaged at that point.

I believe their SOUL fractured when they and Asriel both died together. Because monster SOULs can't survive death, and our SOUL shatters upon death.

Asriel's conspicuous, utterly uncharacteristic lack of compassion is like a nametag on the soul that he must have, but doesn't think he has, saying "This belongs to Chara."

Or it could just mean he has no SOUL, and thus, no love, hope, or compassion.

And when Asriel releases all of the souls? We see a ton of monster souls... the 6 non-red human souls... and nothing else. Chara's red soul NEVER LEAVES ASRIEL.

Because it was never THERE to BEGIN with.

I can't remember exactly where the quote is, but somewhere in Deltarune it's re-iterated that Compassion Comes From The Soul.

It says that in Deltarune too?

I hope it's not just the way you interpret the line "There's a light inside your SOUL" alongside "Don't forget, I'm with you in the dark"...

And even after releasing all the souls that he'd captured, Asriel retains his ability to feel compassion. He tells Frisk not to tell his parents that he's still alive, because he believes he's going to fade again, and doesn't want them to experience the pain of losing him a second time.

Saying something compassionate ≠ Feeling compassion.

Flowey acted compassionate when he first came to life. He first called out to Asgore, and while he didn't feel any emotions, he still seemed to like Asgore. And he waited WEEKS, hoping to feel something. He WANTED to feel something, so he was still acting compassionate, he just didn't FEEL compassion.

After discovering his SAVE ability, he helped solve the monsters' problems at first. And when he did start turning towards the dark side by killing the monsters, he first had to convince himself that it's fine, because he just HAD to know what happens (He probably even planned on just reloading afterwards, thinking it's fine, it'll be undone.. Much as many players do in games when they take the Evil Path. Flowey is basically a player at this point, having the same abilities as a player.)

We just saved Chara's soul (a metaphor for our player's own), and healed the ancient wound that prevented her from feeling compassion. So now... Asriel can finally feel compassion again.

We came to play Undertale SPECIFICALLY because it's an RPG where nobody has to die. Why would OUR soul be damaged?

The pattern fits too well. It means too much. And in one form or another (perhaps two?) Asriel is still around in Deltarune. He did not fade, as he believed would happen.

That is, if Deltarune really is the same world as Undertale..