Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26006155-20190403163405/@comment-26006155-20190422143740

Reply to Ambassador about Chapter 7: https://undertale.fandom.com/wiki/Thread:162205#222

Well, I knew this would be a long one. -- A-Alright, I'll just rapid-fire the rebuttals so far. Bending the rules to give yourself an unfair advantage doesn't count as being more powerful, Sans is reading Frisk's face, not remembering timelines, Sans' promise did happen, he'd rather not just destroy all humanity, and he'd rather have the dog rule, or someone more qualified. Not someone who has the power to do it, but someone who can do it well.

--Are you really arguing that Sans isn’t that powerful?

He’s by far the most difficult boss in the game. And not just because he can disable invincibility frames. He also can psychokineticly bash you against walls, and can fire badass lasers than white out a significant portion of the screen. As well a teleport. As well as evade all your attacks.

How can you argue that Sans isn’t powerful because he’s breaking the game.. When he’s the only one powerful enough TO break the game?

Even MatPat agrees that he hauled the entire building of Grillby’s up from the Underground to see in in the town of Deltarune. I don’t see anyone else literally throwing buildings around like basketballs.

-You say that Sans is reading Frisk’s face to know how many times they’ve fought. Which he always gets right, even if it’s something like Seven. How is this possible? Sans is punking us.

--I provided an annotated list of problems with Sans’ assertion that ‘he would have killed Frisk on sight if not for the mysterious promise to the unknown Knock Knock lady behind the Ruins door’. Sans has known Toriel for a long time already, and seems to have passed through the Ruins just like Frisk did at some point, leaving Toriel his phone.

--Sans is by far the most qualified person in the Underground. He single-handedly keeps the government from falling apart despite Papyrus’ less-than-inspired rule. Sans can rule well, he’s brilliant. But even though he’s far more qualified than Papyrus, he refuses to be King even if it means the King’s throne stays vacant. Because Sans refused to become King himself for personal reasons. -- There is a great body of evidence that Papyrus is, in fact, a skeleton. Granted, for all we know Starmen might actually be skeletons wearing cool suits. But if you’re trying to argue that Papyrus *isn’t* a skeleton, and not radically different in nature than Sans, you’re going to have do more work to support that argument.

I don’t know where you’re getting this stuff about Determination being yellow. Unless you mean the actual Word at some points?

I’m still not sure why some words are shown in Yellow or Red. It does seem like during the monster roll call at the end that the text turns yellow if you manages to get a rare response out of them. --- I have no idea why Sans put chips in the refrigerator. Then again, I don’t know why he has a comic book with a quantum physics book inside it either. --- Why can’t the red stuff leaking out of Sans be Human Ketchup?

Is Sans just a huge bag of ketchup? If he was a literal skeleton filled to the gills with ketchup, why isn’t he leaving sloshing red footprints everywhere he goes, even before he gets stabbed? Why aren’t his clothes leaking red gunk from the moment we first see him in the Judgement Hall? --- I’ll grant you that Papyrus’ ‘Not Sleeping’ is unusual for monsters since we observe several sleeping. I’m not saying Papyrus is normal by any standards.

I’m just saying he’s a heck of a lot different than Sans, and there’s no way the two are literal brothers. - Ok, Sans sweats above the eyes. And he scratches his head in a self-conscious manner, too. It would be very hot wearing a costume head around all the time, though. And Sans has to emote somehow. -- Don’t forget that in Earthbound’s context, Starmen *are* monsters. Elite ones. --- Didn’t Papyrus also fidget and try to scratch is face during his boss fight? Skeletons can feel it seems - Math: If Papyrus was born in 1995, he would be around 24 at the end of 201X, aka 2019. Old enough to be an adult. But not so old as to have abandoned all childish things.

My argument was that Papyrus couldn’t be Gaster Skeleton, because he existed in the Underground long before Gaster arrived. - You dont’ think Sans looks sinister when his eyes vanish, and he slowly spells out: “You’d be dead where you stand…” ? - We know Sans has killed before, and has the capacity to kill, because Flowey says Sans is responsible for most of his “resets” ie, Sans kills Flowey in most timelines.

Flowey even looks pleased when Frisk finally stabs him, saying “I KNEW YOU COULD DO IT!”

.. of course Flowey knew Frisk could do it. His future self had already killed Flowey many times.

B-And while he seems ashamed and self-conscious of this wound upon his soul, and tries hard to make the best decisions in a tense situation, his LOVE level is actually very high. A-How do we know how high it is? I say because of his 1ATK and 1DEF, he's at LV1.

You’re taking the information that Chara, The Unreliable Narrator, is giving us? Where she specifically says Sans is The Weakest Enemy?

She’s every bit as unreliable a narrator as Giygas is in the Halloween Hack. --- B-And if he wants to, Sans can give you a very, very bad time. A-As I said, that's solely because of his Gaster Blaster technology, and his special KR ability. It's not strength, it's special abilities. Sans used up all of his points on INT, blue magic, and probably a long path to bypass invincibility frames. (Or keep reducing it until it hit 0.) He sacrificed his HP, ATK, and DEF, all the way down to 1 to do this. He's the biggest powergamer in the entire history of Outside (Undertale edition)

… please stop arguing that Sans is a weak adversary. Yes, if wasn’t for his boatload of amazing special abilities.. Sans might be easy to defeat!
 * 1) Logic

Remember that Sans can psychokinietically smash us against walls like a racquetball without using his Gaster Blasters. He has amazing anime super weapons at his disposal, but doesn’t actually NEED them.

… please stop arguing that Sans is a weak adversary. It actually hurts me. -- Perhaps Undyne’s ultraviolence does come from having some second-hand human Determination in her?

Although I’m not sure I’d call it darkness, more like fanatical diligence.

Undyne can’t stand people who hurt others. And she’s willing to take a deathblow to save Monster Kid.

Undyne is unwavering, unyielding, and uncompromising. But she doesn’t enjoy causing pain like Chara does. -- B-Sans, who has killed before, is no longer innocent, and is no longer capable of achieving this happy ending on his own. A-If you reset, you lose the guilt, and become guiltless again. Hence why you can get a True Pacifist even after killing. So all those times he killed Flowey don't count.

Do you really think Sans ACTS guiltless in the game?

He asks a serial killer if there’s hope for people like him. Hope for people like THEM.

Even if you rewind the timelines where Sans ends up killing Flowey, Sans still has a certain melancholy about him. And he remains threatening at times like the MTT Diner.

Sans got an advanced LVL level before the game began. And I show that it’s from his fallout with Gaster later on. -- B-But Frisk must have gone somewhere, because Sans always has to leave him a message. A-What's to say they didn't bonk their head on the barrier trying to reach the surface?

Great. So Frisk is still in the Underground. So why does Sans have to leave a message? Because Frisk isn’t there anymore.

So where did Frisk go, if he didn’t go through the Barrier? But somehow evaded Sans and Alphys, who always knew where he was at every step? (Except when Alphys didn’t watch the Undyne fight)

Where else could Frisk have gone, other than back in time? - Perhaps you have a point that Sans and the others thought Frisk took Asgore’s soul and went through the barrier. But we know this didn’t happen. --- B-If Frisk did go back in time, to try to help an earlier version of himself get a better ending.. What would that look like to the earlier version of Frisk that encountered his future self? A-There'd be two Frisks, of course.

Glad we can agree on something. --- B-Sans establishes a hot dog stand in Hotland right at a point where Frisk would badly need some food. A-Right where they'd badly need some food? Can you elaborate as to why that specific spot is where Frisk would need some food?

On my playthrough of Undertale, I was dangerously low on food when I encountered Sans’ hot dog stand in Hotland. It’s in just the right place for Frisk to resupply. And Sans knew Frisk would need that. --- B-Although he doesn’t know everything, because if you HAD died before then, Sans is curious about the expression on your face. A-Which rules out the idea that he remembers timelines. Else he'd remember you die, and not be confused.

No, it just means that when Frisk died, Frisk rewound his own timeline back to his last save point.

Unless Sans was there to actually witness Frisk’s death, Frisk could rewind any number of times, and Sans wouldn’t noticed a difference.

Frisk’s Determination overpower Flowey’s, and made it so Flowey no longer had the power to reset. Perhaps Frisk can overpower Sans, too? - B-And you see that both Sans and Frisk have the same cartoony pencil-necks when they sit side by side at Grillby’s. A-What about everybody else, though? And why can't this be because they're skeletons?

Are you saying Frisk is a skeleton? - A-In the Beta timeline, Gaster fell before the Skelebros would have been born. Their origin literally doesn't exist anymore. This is the reason why there aren't two Sans-es and two Papyrus-es. There was no Beta Sans or Beta Papyrus. There is only Alpha Sans and Alpha Papyrus.

Frisk is Beta Sans.

As for Beta Papyrus, he’s still a mystery. But due to the two Papyrus pictures in the Dog Shrine, I wouldn’t be completely surprised if we did bump into two of him at some point. Or two Gasters. -- B-And while the final knife strike does hit Sans, Frisk is the one who actually falls and generates the Executions Points that Chara receives, as she finally takes over Frisk’s body and soul completely, effectively killing him. A-..We control Frisk again until Asgore's fight. Chara and Frisk likely share control until then. But Frisk still has more control, since we can still reset.

We can control where Chara-possessed Frisk walks.. But not what he/she does anymore. --- Nobody won the Sans fight. We don’t get a “You Won!” indicator.

Somebody *did* die.. But it wasn’t Sans. - B-So Sans leaves, bidding Chara a fond farewell as he creates a portal to another timeline, and says hello to another Papyrus as he travels to a dimension where his best friend is still alive. A-He asked Papyrus if he wanted anything (after saying he's going to Grillby's) when we could still hear him! So he was asking Papyrus if he wanted anything.. from THIS timeline! An alternate Papyrus wouldn't be able to hear that! He must have been speaking to our Papyrus.. who is dead!

… say that again? Sans must be talking to the dead Papyrus we saw turn to dust in real time? -- B-Sans wanted to find someone would could save himself, too. A-Well, there's another error that made it through the proofreading process. "would could"? But as I said, resetting should be enough.
 * 1) logic

Thanks for catching that. Proofreading isn’t my strong suit.