Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-36626598-20181213111734/@comment-32182236-20190126231311

Well, I might have the way to end this random chaos! ..Or just make more of it, I'm not really sure at this point.

--The Relationship Between Matter and Magic--

Regular monster attacks target the SOUL too-And deduct HP in the same way! Clearly, we have spiritual attacks (also magical attacks, for that matter), having a direct impact on our physical state. We still lose HP all the same. And Toriel spots that we're hurt if we lost HP in the Ruins before reuniting with her in HOME.

Physical, magical, spiritual.

Matter, magic, spirit.

In Kingdom Hearts:Body, heart, soul.

Or, in Undertale's reference frame:Vessel, SOUL, essence.

They all interact with each other. In a sense, they even unify into one big system.

--So, What is KR?--

Determination is something that's PROVEN to be an extractable substance.. But it's also a part of the SOUL, and carries with it a very real magical ability:The ability to defy death itself. One could say that determination is life, in fact, as giving determination to ANY vessel (Even, say, a golden flower) that has the essence of another (say, Asriel), will bring life to that vessel, and it will have the personal identity of the one whose essence was within that vessel.

So, what if KR worked similarly? We know it works by draining HP, specifically, through damage that would normally be blocked by INV frames. But.. how? Well, perhaps it's a medium, of sorts..

You see, whenever damage is made to a SOUL, it turns immune to damage for a certain number of frames. This is common knowledge, though-How is this anything new? Well, perhaps, then, KR absorbs the magic responsible for the damage BEFORE it would get blocked by the SOUL, then, once the shield drops, it passes through, and starts releasing said magic, dealing damage? So, the damage of KR is in fact the SAME damage that your SOUL just blocked, just released AFTER the invincibility frames wear off. That'd explain a lot of the mechanics of KR, including the reason why healing items cap out at healing damage already drained, but not damage that is still BEING drained through KR. But then, how can that be KARMA? And wait, "a lot" of them? Shouldn't we strive to explain EVERYTHING about it?

--The Karma-Shaped Holes--

There are a few holes in the hypothesis, as it currently stands. For one, if it really IS exactly the same damage, why doesn't KR damage give you invincibility frames themselves? And secondly, what does any of this have to do with sins crawling on our back? Well, THAT is where KARMA comes into play! But first, back to determination.

Determination is not JUST a physical substance.. It's also the resolve to change fate:Very clearly a mental, spiritual phenomenon. When Undyne was determined to strike Genocide Frisk down, THAT is what allowed her to resurrect as Undyne, when normally, she couldn't do that! In fact, once you kill of her Undying form, she gets so determined that she physically melts, just like the Amalgamates who were physically DOSED with determination! Which, once again, does not happen normally. If this was just Undyne dying, she would turn to dust, not melt. She does turn to dust right afterwards, though, but still. We have a SPIRITUAL state taking PHYSICAL form. And determination's life is NOT just adding more HP either-In her Netural fight, Undyne lives, even as you push her HP into the negatives, until eventually, it's just not enough. It works separately from regular healing.

The reverse is possible as well! When Flowey was injected with determination, he FELT determination as well. He had a burning feeling that he didn't want to die, even as he tried to do this. And that does NOT typically happen with monsters, they don't HAVE such a feeling. Not even Asriel himself was shown to have this urge of survival. So not only are the three types of things connected, objects can actually transform BETWEEN these three things! They're just as interchangeable as matter and energy!

So, back to KR. We know KR takes in a magical force equivalent to damage X, and then distributes said damage over time. But what if the damage was actually transformed as well? From magical damage.. to spiritual damage? Instead of combatting the HP with actual forces, it instead converts it into retribution for your sins? We know spiritual traits can become physical:That's how determination works. We also know sin actually DOES exist inside the SOUL, as Woshua states your SOUL is unclean if you've killed. So, if damage energy was added to that PART of you, it could still spread all the same, and make you lose HP.

..And that's probably how it works.

--

And all of that.. Just to show that KR, which was supposed to be obvious.. Actually IS, in fact, KARMA.