Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26006155-20200107155350/@comment-26907577-20200210140903

The goal is to a find a pattern that conforms to all the lore.

No, the goal is to find as many patterns as necessary to conform to all the lore. We don't know that every trivial detail falls under the same theory.

One detail, like Scabbers the Rat being 12 when most rats live to 3, might be more suggestive than conclusive of him not being a normal rat.

Yes, because that is an apparent contradiction- statistically, at least. The keychain thing doesn't have any statistical or logical problems.

But when you add the evidence that Voldemort had a spy close to Harry, Scabber kept running off on his own initiative, Ron's attempts to polymorph scabbers failed (not because Ron was inept as we first though, but because Scabber's nature was far more complex than he assumed), and one of James Potter's old friends being an animagus named "wormtail", a very rat-like name, then the web gets strong enough to be conclusive.

Yes, because all of that requires explanation that isn't given by the obvious stuff.

After all these put together, the chance of Scabbers the Rat being a normal rat is vanishly small.

Eh... I wouldn't say vanishingly, but sure. The odds are suggestive at that point.

And that's what I set out to do when I take a mass of small details into account like this. Finding a solution that conforms to ALL OF THEM leaves very little room for error. And the fact that a solution even *does* exist under these circumstances is a strong argument the that pattern actually reveals part of the artist's design, rather than just being randomness spun out of the ether.

But maybe the solution doesn't conform to all of them. Maybe some of them are normal.

If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and sounds like a duck, it's probably just a duck. Only when it does something ducks shouldn't do we get doubtful.

Chara is (or at least WAS) a human. So if Chara can't remember resets, then Sans' inability to also remember resets during the game doesn't disqualify him as being a human.

Chara no longer has a SOUL, at least not Narrator Chara. Even your theory claims that their SOUL somehow survived... and ended up in Flowey.

It might be Meta, but the game makes too big a deal about Frisk's phone having a keychain for it just to be random. Even in the No Mercy route, when Alphys doesn't upgrade our phone, the keychain is still there, and we still can't look at it to see what keys are actually on it.

Hmm, can't find what Ambassador said on this. Maybe he didn't say it. Here, I'll say it my own way:


 * Bayes' Theorem doesn't put the obvious things above the subtle ones. It puts them all on a level playing field, based only on their strength. If the evidence creates an apparent contradiction in the null hypothesis, it has strength. Otherwise? Otherwise, a rock is probably just a rock.

It would have been so easy just to make it another mini-bag and save the keys like a Key Item collection. But no... the Mystery Key to Mettaton's house doesn't fit on our keychain, and breaks after use.

Ah, that's it.


 * Dog of the Gaps.

Alphys brings up the keychain during the upgrade, saying "it even has a keychain..." although it already did. That's a bit like how she made it sound like she'd just upgraded Toriel's phone for texting.. when texting is the only way Sans could have communicated with Toriel and told her all about his brother, without giving away what his voice sounded like. Tricky little hidden details.

Yes. They are tricky, little, and hidden. That does not mean they are important. Them contradicting the null hypothesis makes them important... which these don't.

It would have also be so simple for Sans to just give Frisk the key as a gift. Instead.. we find it's already on our keychain. And we knew this by looking, not by feeling.

Funky Time Stuff. It's still mysterious without necessitating a new conspiracy. Exactly what probably happened.

While when it happens the 4th time, we actually feel something on the chain, although Chara doesn't know what it is at first.

Maybe Sans was distracted by wondering why you reset again and got clumsy. Sure, it has less Story Potential, but I'm growing to hate Story Potential.

Something important is happening here.

As I have clearly explained above, you have not proved that.

Discovering who knew what, and when, is very important.

Perhaps.

Overall:
 * Minor details aren't necessarily more important.
 * Major details aren't necessarily more important.
 * Only details that require explanation beyond "it just happened" are ever important, unless they provide support whilst adding no assumptions. In your case, they add assumptions.
 * Story Potential is a specific form of Dog of the Gaps.
 * I hate Dog of the Gaps.
 * In this case, all of the above is completely irrelevant because you have a contradiction on your hands. No amount of Story Potential can fix that, even if Story Potential was acceptable.