Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-31371445-20170222233857/@comment-32182236-20180909120328

"Lack of connection? I thought just the term would suffice."

Except the term was never used.

"Its power allows it to persist outside the human body, even after death."-Plaque, in reference to the power of the main strength of the SOUL. (persisting after death is definitely a power.)

..Never once do you see the phrase "SOUL power" here.

"You know, how when a person talks about a dog, they don't actually mean a cat, they mean a dog."

Right, but here, it's more like they were talking about a nice little pet that walks on four legs, without "dog" being mentioned once, and a cat fits this criteria just fine as well.

"Read the plaques again. They weren't speaking of the weakness of DT, but of the weakness of souls, which is DT; specifically, that it allows them to persist after death. Nothing mentioned or implied a flux here. DT is simply a "weakness", because the monsters can grab the soul after death and absorb it. That's the weakness it gives humans."

...Yeah, I'm actually with you on this one. The next plaque confirms this interpretation. But, that only means that it's a weakness, still no reference to SOUL power.

"And why should it? Similarly, why shouldn't Asgore smashing our mercy button with his trident be simply a metaphor for our, as well as his refusal to give mercy to each other?"

Frisk would have no way of knowing on turn 1 that mercy was impossible, and thus, it shouldn't have shattered that early. In fact, it takes 9 times of trying to talk before Chara just goes on to say that all you can do is FIGHT. Not only that, you'd think that would be referenced somehow? In the case of the cliffs, I've already explained why that wouldn't work:Gaster, the creator of the CORE, would have taken advantage of that and created a flawless system that no humans can pass, and monsters could pass quite easily (just put in a 1cm gap somewhere on the ONE path through.) Remember:Is the mechanic actually abused by one of the characters? In Asgore, well, we flat-out see him do that, and that's a programmed cutscene. In LV20, he doesn't do that, because it's already gone. The LATTER case is more likely to be more of a metaphor of you just not being able to use MERCY, because at LV20, your level of violence is just too high to redeem yourself, and Chara took control over Frisk at this point. (And nobody shattered it, so we can't use that explanation anyway, even if we tried.) This also demonstrates a method that could have been used instead of Asgore smashing the mercy button, if a metaphor was what Toby was going for:Then just add some narration saying something like "This one can't be reasoned with", and voila!

"If according to THA it isn't a metaphor and Asgore actually physically did that, then why deny that there's a presence of a forcefield that stops Frisk from advancing further always at the EXACT same distance from a given boundary?"

The former was a programmed in cutscene, that didn't need to happen. The latter is to make sure Frisk doesn't try to commit suicide, and was never actually shown or abused by anyone. (Doing that would be against the trait of DT, wouldn't it?) Not only that, calling it canon creates many holes within the story.

"And it's not just cliffs, this boundary also prevents them from stepping over boulders and whatnot."

It's a BOULDER. Pretty sure Frisk doesn't have Enhanced Leap as a superpower.

"No harm comes from stepping on boulders, mind you (maybe execpt for that talking one, but that's just one of many)."

You're not even stepping on them-You're trying to push them.

"Or there's chairs. Somehow, Frisk can push boulders, but cannot push chairs?"

Let's see.. The first time you encounter such a chair is during Undyne's hangout. With Undyne right in front of you. Tell me, what do you think would happen if Frisk DID start moving that chair all around?

"Or snow poffs. How about stepping over them? Nope. An impassable barrier once again."

By looking at the size of them relative to Frisk's size, they're about half as tall as Frisk themselves. Of course they can't step over them.

"No, I am looking at it the way it is presented. If these things were a metaphor, I'd agree that it's a real world. If however you tell me these mechanics are canon, suddenly, the world incorporates mechanics and processes that are most commonly, or rather solely, found in computer games."

Then apply my razor to it:If it's not abused by anyone, and it's not mentioned by anyone, it's not canon. No black void with white monsters, no invisible barriers, and no black screen ending the world in a Pacifist Run (before Genocide, but even if it was after Genocide, it's not the same black screen..)

"Why only humans and monsters? What about animals, inanimate objects, or... why not the NPCs actually?"

It likely has something to do with their SOULs-A fight only begins when a human's SOUL is separated from their body, after all. And Malice gave the same reason that I was going to give about NPCs:They don't want to fight, so they don't initiate a FIGHT. That's kind of what lead me to the calculation of less than half of the monsters wanting to kill you. Of COURSE the rules of FIGHT applies to the NPCs-They just don't start one.

"Says who?"

..Let's see, powerful humans fighting against each other.. No SOUL is getting removed, so no FIGHT is triggered..

"Hey, how about we say they can only select the prompts that the monsters made available, meaning they are only limited to a given number of questions per visit? (If we're already saying that enemies can mess with our HUD, that is.) Also, I recommend you the fan fiction Golden Quiche, that one explored this concept rather well."

This is actually one of those cases where my razor doesn't quite work so concretely. We get something that may or may not be someone abusing these mechanics:Specifically, in Alphys' date, where your options are either to roleplay it, or to roleplay it. Nobody mentioned that they were your only choices, and yet, there were clearly two options, and this wasn't a cutscene. (Mettaton's "Would you smooch a ghost" doesn't count:That was HIS quiz, and it's natural he gave the answer choices to his quiz-In a way that really makes use of turns-It's HIS turn, but you can communicate your answer by moving your SOUL towards one of the boxes he placed for you!)

"Then he has confirmed that the world is a game/simulation, the simpler of the two available interpretations of this concept. Or did you dunk your reason into the trashbin already?"

Will you just click the link and get the exact quote from him already, so you can analyze it with us, instead of our imperfect translations of it?

"Which is? If you're making a point, try modelling it so that I can understand you."

...The game ITSELF tells you what that one rule is. Flowey says it loud and clear-If you have more DT than another, you override their ability to S/L/R. When we mention one clear rule, chances are, we're talking about the one the game spells out for us.

"Ergo, not all of it has been extracted from them. That is a pretty obvious conclusion, no?"

Yeah, I've reached that conclusion a long time ago as well. And that doesn't reply on DT being SOUL power-Alphys extracted DT:That's a fact.

"I have no argument against this. Literally. If this is what you believe, that souls have a capacity reader inside them that they use to determine if it's gonna be red or not, then go with it. I just don't see the point of it. I mean, it could work, this could be the case, but a pointless one."

..Yeah, no. No capacity reader. It's just that whichever trait is most dominant gets to see their color shine as the SOUL color. Kind of like whoever has the most DT gets to S/L/R..

"You are assuming the traits are physical and that all humans possess all of them in varying quantities. I don't favor this, since the game didn't imply that DT is a trait, nor that the other traits are extractable like DT."

This actually doesn't matter that much for the sake of what Malice said. DT was defined as the resolve to change fate:Clearly, a mental part of the SOUL, it's a part of your personality. Yet, it's extractable, into a physical substance. ...Why would DT be the only exception?

DT being the red trait just makes the process a lot quicker and smoother-If DT is the collection of all six traits, then if the collection is extractable, so is each part.

"My belief is, that a soul's trait is just its "flavor". Imagine a red lightbulb. It doesn't actually produce a red light, it's just the tint of the glass that makes it red. That's the trait. And the light is supplied by the DT, or perhaps the essence shining through the DT."

The light's more likely to be supplied by SOUL power. You know, that metric that never changes, ever? And the traits would all try to "influence" the light to change from black to whatever their current trait is. Of course, the dominant one would win. (White is magic)